The Harvard women’s lacrosse team outscored the Big Red, 8-2, through the opening and closing 16 minutes of its Saturday afternoon meeting at No. 12 Cornell.

But during the time in between, the Crimson (6-8, 1-6 Ivy) was kept off the scoreboard, while Cornell (10-3, 5-2) buried Harvard with 10 consecutive goals.

The 12-8 defeat made this year’s Crimson team the first in school history to lose six Ivy games.

“It’s really frustrating to look at the scores we’ve had this season and our place in the standings,” said co-captain Megan Austin. “I think we’re a lot better than that shows. I know for a fact that all of the teams we’ve played this season have had to take us seriously.”

Harvard led 2-1 through a low-scoring, back-and-forth opening stretch of the first half. Senior midfielder Courtney Leimkuhler and senior attacker Lauren Corkery scored the first two Harvard goals. Junior midfielder Lizzy Frisbie, who led all scorers with three goals and two assists on the day, assisted on both goals.

But then Cornell took complete control of the game. The Big Red reeled off seven consecutive points before the end of the first half, and three more early in the second half, which left the Crimson facing an 11-2 deficit.

“When we came out there, we were playing a solid game, but we had lapses,” Austin said. “We were having a lot of trouble once we got into the offensive end, throwing bad passes and rushing the shot. We weren’t settled in the attack. We weren’t finding the open person.”

Cornell’s Sarah Averson and Jaimee Reynolds did most of the damage for the Big Red, as each netted a hat trick. Although Cornell legitimately dominated the medial stretch of the game, the Big Red did benefit from a few lucky bounces, including a free position goal that deflected off of a player’s shoulder.