LAKE PLACID, N.Y.—Cinderella is going ice dancing.

Sophomore Tyler Kolarik’s goal at 16:11 of double overtime gave the Harvard men’s hockey team an epic 4-3 double-overtime victory over heavily-favored Cornell in the ECAC championship game, sending the Crimson to its first NCAA tournament since 1994.

“It was a great college hockey game,” Harvard Coach Mark Mazzoleni said. “We had to be at our best to beat Cornell, and this was our best game.”

Written off just two weeks earlier after backing into the postseason, Harvard (15-14-4) improbably secured an automatic tourney berth with its first four-game winning streak of the season.

Three of those four wins came in overtime, including Harvard’s 3-2 victory over Clarkson in the ECAC semifinals on Friday. Saturday’s win improved the Crimson to 4-0-4 in overtime games on the year, with each win more exciting than the one before.

The victory was a gigantic step for the Harvard hockey program, which had fallen on hard times in the late 1990s after being one of the most dominant teams in college hockey a decade before.

“When our staff took over three years ago, we knew it was going to take time,” Mazzoleni said. “I never envisioned this would happen tonight.”

Last night, Harvard received the sixth seed in the NCAA tournament’s eastern region. The Crimson will play Maine at Worcester Saturday in the first round.

Despite losing Saturday, Cornell (24-7-2) earned an at-large bid, and the Big Red has the easiest first-round matchup of the tournament, opening against MAAC champion Quinnipiac.

Kolarik’s goal ended a tense, four-hour stalemate that surpassed Harvard’s 2-1 double-overtime victory over Brown last Saturday as the longest game in school history.

The game-winning sequence started when sophomore forward Tim Pettit fired a cross-ice pass a streaking Kolarik, who took the puck inside the blueline. Kolarik, playing with a broken thumb, then wristed a knuckling shot which eluded Big Red goalie Matt Underhill to the stick side and set off a wild celebration behind the Cornell goal.

“I thought I caught Underhill by surprise,” Kolarik said. “He was expecting me to drive wide, but I just threw the puck at net with all I had.”

For his efforts, Kolarik was named the tournament’s most valuable player. Pettit, who scored twice versus Cornell, made the All-Championship Team.

In addition to being the longest game in Harvard history, Saturday’s contest was the longest game in Cornell history, the longest-ever ECAC championship game and the ninth-longest game in the history of NCAA hockey.

After a fast and furious first overtime period filled with quality scoring chances on each side, both teams battled fatigue in the second overtime. Harvard had to be especially wary of tiring, as the Crimson played just three lines and five defensemen for virtually the entire game, while the Big Red countered with a full complement of four lines and six blueliners.