When Notre Dame forward Brian Giordano gave the Fighting Irish a 6-5 lead with just 44 seconds left to play at Jordan Field Saturday, all signs pointed to another disapointing loss for the Harvard men’s lacrosse team.

This time, however, things would be different.

After sophomore midfielder Jeff Gottschall tied the game with just 15 seconds ramining, junior Matt Primm’s goal at 3:03 of overtime gave the Crimson a dramatic come-from-behind 7-6 win over Notre Dame (4-8).

“We’ve battled all season, and things haven’t always gone our away,” sophomore midfielder Alex Vap said. “It’s nice to finally get a little bit of luck.”

With Saturday’s victory, Harvard (7-8, 0-5 Ivy) kept its hopes for a winning season alive. The Crismon have now won two straight after a disastorous midseason strech of seven consecutive losses.

Harvard’s last-second rally began with the faceoff after Notre Dame’s go-ahead goal. Vap won the must-win draw, teaming with senior midfielder Derek Nowak to force the ball from a Notre Dame player who initially had posession. Had the Fighting Irish won the draw, it would likley have run out the clock.

Instead, Harvard established its offense and worked the ball around to Gotschall on the far side of the net. The sophomore fired a shot over the left shoulder of Notre Dame goaltender Nick Antol with 15.6 seconds on the clock, sending the game into overtime.

“To know you’ve outplayed a team and to be down a goal with 45 seconds left was very tough and disapointing,” freshman attacker Mike McBride said. “When Gottschall scored, I knew we were going to win.”

Vap won another crucial facoff to start the sudden-death overtime period, winning the ball over to Nowak, who set up Harvard’s offense.

The Crimson planned to get the ball to Primm behind the net, who would then find either McBride or Gottschall coming free off a pick. The Fighting Irish read the play well, however, and Primm could find no one open in front.

So Primm just took the ball himself, coming from behind the net and beating his defender and Antol for the game-winning goal.

“The defense was expecting him to go left, but he just faked his guy out, made a nice hard move and finished strong,” McBride said.

Saturday’s victory was extra sweet for Harvard defensemen Joe Nejman and Hani Rimlawi. Both players are transfers from Notre Dame—Rimlawi joined the team this season while Nejman first played for Harvard last year as a sophomore.

“They were psyched to play,” McBride said. “Those two were very focused all day, and it helped out some of the other players.”

Harvard held its opponent under seven goals for the third consecutive game, after doing so just once in its first ten games of the year. McBride attributes this improvement to better ball-control by Harvard’s offense.