Probably the last team a struggling Harvard men's lacrosse team wanted to face was Princeton.

Three time defending national champs. Four straight Ivy titles. Undefeated in the Ancient Eight this year.

Still, defying expectations, the Crimson (3-6, 1-3 Ivy) kept it close in the first half, trailing only 6-4. But the Tigers' (5-3, 4-0) talent took over at the start if the second half rattling off five consecutive goals to win 12-8 Saturday at Class of 1952 Stadium in New Jersey. HARVARD  8 PRINCETON  12

"We need to work hard for the whole game," junior attacker Lawson DeVries said. "We know we have the players to win, but we haven't put together a complete game."

The Tigers second half run actually began at 14:37 of the second quarter when sophomore midfielder Matt Bailer found the back of the net for his second of three goals on the day.

Just 39 seconds into the third quarter sophomore attacker Matt Streiber made the score 7-4, netting one with the man advantage.

"At the beginning of the second half we came out sluggish," said DeVries, who had two goals and an assist for the Crimson. "With our young team, we didn't know how to react."

Bailer in particular hurt the Crimson. He had a career day for Princeton scoring three goals and going a perfect 12-for-12 on faceoffs.

Harvard had difficulty maintaining any possession of the ball in the fateful third quarter. Bailer was largely responsible, winning most of his draws cleanly to himself.

"Bailer played great," sophomore midfielder Dana Sprong said. "He's scored about half of his career goals in the past few games so he's been coming on strong for [Princeton]."

Harvard also didn't receive any help from the officials suffering an eight-to-one penalty deficit. Princeton converted on half of its man-up situations.

Meanwhile, junior midfielder Geoffrey Watson netted the only extra man goal for Harvard way back at 3:31 of the second quarter tying the score then at 2-2.

"We felt we had a number of bad calls in the game," Sprong said.

By 11:17, Princeton freshman attacker B.J. Prager completed his hat trick and tallied the final power play goal of the game.

At 11-4, the game was basically out of reach.