Fired up by the attendance and importance of the game, Harvard jumped out to an early 2-0 lead behind goals from junior Leslie Bennett, who had a particularly strong showing all weekend.

UMass put two in the net to catch up, and then the two teams traded goals. With the score at 4-3 toward the closing of the fourth quarter, Harvard scored to even it at four apiece, and the two teams headed into overtime for the first time this season.

"It was awesome," Magnuson said. "All season we had known we could play with them, but hadn't been able to prove it. [Saturday night]we had the momentum and were actually doing it."

Two minutes into overtime, Harvard pushed ahead with a goal. But UMass countered immediately with a goal of its own to bring the first three-minute overtime period to a close.

In the second overtime period, UMass lobbed a ball into the goal with what proved to be the difference for the game.

"We were happy with our performance, even if it was extremely frustrating to lose the second game of the day by such a small margin," Gunderson said. "It is extremely hard to maintain the intensity and push throughout two overtime games, but we did it."

As the buzzer sounded, the tired Harvard players realized that there was only one remaining shot to go to Nationals: they had to beat Princeton in the third-place game on Sunday morning.