After a heart-breaking loss to Princeton just a week ago that seemed to crush its Ivy League hopes, the Harvard men's soccer team convincingly beat Dartmouth 2-1 Saturday afternoon at Ohiri Field for its second straight win and can still finish with a plus-.500 record in the league.

Although it is mathematically eliminated from contention for the title, the Crimson (4-8-2, 2-3 Ivy) has proved over the last week that it is still a team to be reckoned with.

Senior forward Armando Petruccelli and several of his teammates have pointed out over the past few weeks that the bounces just haven't gone Harvard's way whenever it seems it is ready to break through.

"That's exactly what's been happening," Petruccelli said. "The bounces hadn't been going our way until lately. We've been able to get the lead and keep it these last two games."

In this light, the past week was a welcome refresher for the Crimson, as it strung together consecutive wins for the first time this season, beating Fairfield 2-0 last Tuesday.

At the 59:31 mark in the second half of Saturday's match, senior striker Will Hench took a quick pass off a free kick from Petruccelli, and fired a laser past Dartmouth's sophomore goalkeeper Ben Gebre-Medhin to give Harvard a 2-1 lead.

"Armando just took [the free kick] real quick," freshman Crimson midfielder Marc Buan said. "Will was able to get a few good touches on it and then he basically just flipped it over the goalie."

Hench's goal turned out to be the eventual game winner as the Big Green (2-8-3, 1-4-1 Ivy) was unable to mount another offensive push and was shut out the rest of the way by sophomore Crimson goalkeeper Mike Meagher, who made two saves.