The Harvard men’s tennis team almost kept Irish eyes from smiling this St. Patrick’s Day weekend.

Last Saturday in Montgomery, Ala., No. 44 Harvard put a major scare into fourth-ranked Notre Dame in the semifinal round of the Blue-Gray Invitational. The Crimson—which had already upset two top-35 teams in two days—eventually succumbed to the Fighting Irish, 4-3, but not before pushing Notre Dame to the final set of the deciding match in the epic semifinal.

Harvard junior David Lingman dropped the third set of that decisive contest after gutting out a second-set victory to pull even with Notre Dame’s Javier Taborga. It would have been a thrilling upset had Lingman—playing at No. 1 singles for just the fourth time this season—managed to top Taborga, who is ranked in the top-20 nationally.

“I knew that [Taborga] was getting tired [in the third set],” Lingman said. “I thought I had a pretty good shot at it.”

Lingman’s loss ended the Crimson’s lengthy match with Notre Dame, denying Harvard a chance to face No. 8 Illinois in the Blue-Gray finals. The Crimson was forced to settle for two upsets over the weekend—over No. 34 North Carolina, and No. 24 Indiana State—instead of three.

“Taking it to those two teams was important for us,” Lingman said. “Overall, the weekend was a great success.”

The Crimson, which improved to 7-2 overall with its 2-1 showing at the invitational, will next travel to Fresno State on March 25.

Notre Dame 4, Harvard 3<\b>

Harvard claimed just two of its six singles matches Saturday. Freshman No. 2 Jonathan Chu and sophomore No. 3 Cliff Nguyen won for the Crimson.

The rest of the singles matches were bitterly contested affairs, but losing battles for Harvard in the end. Sophomore Mark Riddell fell 6-4, 7-6(1) at the No. 4 spot, classmate George Turner fell 6-4, 6-4 at No. 5 and freshman Brian Wan dropped a 6-2, 6-3 decision at No. 6. The only loss where Harvard managed to take a set was Lingman’s. When he came up just short, so did the Crimson.

Still, the Crimson’s performance was quite an improvement over last spring’s 4-0 loss to the Irish in the NCAA tournament.

“We knew that we could push them,” Lingman said. “We were pretty happy with how we played, but it was definitely disappointing that we couldn’t pull it out.”

Earlier in the day, Harvard jumped out to a 1-0 lead on the Irish by winning the doubles point. The Crimson’s No. 2 team of Lingman and sophomore Chris Chiou took an 8-5 win over Notre Dame’s James Malhame and Ashok Raju, while Crimson co-captain Dalibor Snyder and Riddell pulled out a win at the No. 3 position, 9-8 (6).

Their efforts more than compensated for Harvard’s loss at the top doubles spot, where the 26th-ranked team of Chu and junior Oli Choo failed to make good on a 6-3 lead, losing 8-6 to the 5th-ranked duo in the nation.