"With the amount of times we had shots, you'd think we could have scored," Downing said. "They could hit the ball but they didn't have great speed."

"Its a game of inches--we need to find the holes, not the keeper." Caples said. "A goal is just a pass, and the net is bigger than a person's stick."

Harvard closed out regulation with two near misses. One corner shot rang off the post and a Fowler flick just barely glanced off Orpen's out-stretched stick.

Princeton rose to the occasion in the overtime periods, but Yadao (19 saves) made three acrobatic blocks in the waning minutes of the final overtime session.

"We had it, we were there, but just couldn't finish," Yadao said. "We are an excellent team on the verge of clicking and it will come. A lot of people came out today and played an excellent game for us."

Hang In There

The Crimson's Ivy League hopes may be a thing of the past but Caples correctly put this in perspective.

"Every team comes to play Harvard like its a championship game," Caples said. "We need to match that intensity. Brown, Cornell and now Princeton--that's only three blemishes and two of them are ties."

Harvard, with its impressive 8-2-2 record, is highly regarded in the region and nation. This afternoon, the Crimson travels to Storr, Conn., to face the top-10 Huskies in a make up of an earlier rainout.