The Saints got goals from first-years Cooper Pierson, Rasmus Svartström, and Sam LeDrew, but the St. Lawrence University men's hockey team fell in a hard-fought overtime battle 4-3 against Harvard on Friday night in the Bright-Landry Hockey Center in the Opening Round of the ECAC Championships.

St. Lawrence had their season end at 7-25-3, while Harvard advances with a record of 15-14-2.

St. Lawrence jumped on the Crimson early in the contest, scoring less than two minutes into the game. Sustained pressure from the Saints' top line led to Luke Santilli corralling the puck at the blueline. He skipped a pass to Andrew Brown, who fired a shot on the Harvard goal. The puck deflected to Tyler Cristall, whose shot was stopped, but Pierson picked up the garbage to give the Scarlet and Brown the lead.

The game cruised along in the first until the Saints were tabbed with a penalty near the midway point. Cameron Smith made a huge save to keep the Crimson away, but the pressure ultimately led to an Aidan Lane goal, which tied the contest.

Following the TV timeout, St. Lawrence went on their firstpower play with 5:49 to go but came up empty. Harvard found themselves on the man advantage once again in the final 54 seconds of the first, but it was killed off, leaving 1:06 of power play time to start the second.

On the restart in the second, Harvard nearly took the lead when a chance rang off the crossbar behind Smith. The play was reviewed and confirmed as no-goal, and the Saints went on to kill the rest of the special teams opportunity.

Harvard kept the momentum and forced Smith to make another big save in the first five minutes of the period. The pressure led to another power-play chance for the home team, which was killed by St. Lawrence.

The penalty kill effort seemed to energize the Scarlet and Brown, who turned the momentum. On back-to-back plays, Filip Juříček was stopped on a mini-breakaway, and Sam LeDrew was denied by Ben Charette on an odd-man rush.

The dam finally burst as Svartström netted his 17^th goal of the year to give the Saints the lead. Gabe Westling had the puck and sent a pass to junior captain Jan Olenginski. The defender ripped a low shot through traffic that Svartström deflected in to make it 2-1 ahead of the TV timeout.

St. Lawrence had a golden chance to extend their lead with a power play chance shortly after the goal. Instead, Harvard was able to capitalize with a shorthanded goal to tie the game. A few more great chances for the Saints, and a late power play chance came up empty as the game went into intermission tied at 2-2.

The tie was broken again at the 7:41 mark of the third when LeDrew fired a laser past the Harvard netminder. Following a Crimson turnover, Cayden Casey flipped a pass over the heads of everyone and onto the stick of LeDrew. The first-year went in on a 2-on-1 and roofed a wrist shot to make it 3-2.

Some back-and-forth play between both sides led to a late TV timeout with 6:17 to play. Moments later, with just under five minutes left to go, Harvard tied the game with a goal by Michael Callow, which sent the game to overtime.

In the 5-on-5 overtime frame, the two teams battled hard, and each had great chances. Svartström had the first grade-A chance for the Saints early in the session, but was stopped by a pad. Nicholas Beneteau had a quality look with a deflection, and Juříček had a one-timer that was narrowly saved, but the Saints couldn't find their winner.

Finally, with 1:40 remaining in the overtime period, Mick Thompson scored the game-winner off a faceoff for Harvard. The goal was reviewed and upheld to give the Crimson the win.

Smith was saddled with the loss for the Saints, performing admirably once more. He made 36 saves on 40 shots over nearly four periods of play. Ben Charette stopped 33 St. Lawrence shots and was awarded the victory between the pipes for Harvard. The Crimson had the only successful special teams chance of the night, going 1-3 on the power play. St. Lawrence was 0-3.