“Our defensive depth is definitely a problem,” McBride said. “We’ve possessed the ball a lot more in the past games, and it takes a lot of pressure off our defense.”

Harvard’s defensive corps kept the team in the game early, holding off the Fighting Irish attack as the Crimson offense struggled throughout most of the game.

“Our defense played really well today, while our offense did not play our best game by far,” Vap said. “We scrapped a lot and got goals off of transitions of turnovers.”

“If we shot a lot better we’d be blowing teams out,” McBride added.

As usual in Harvard’s recent games, both teams struggled to score early. Fighting Irish defenseman Eric Simon scored the first period’s only goal, beating Crimson goalie Jake McKenna just over two minutes into the game.

Notre Dame extended its lead to 2-0 on a goal with 10:16 remaining, but Gottschall would put Harvard on the scoreboard just 45 seconds later, scoring off of an assist from Primm. Primm tied the score at two with 7:39 remaining, and the teams remained deadlocked at halftime.

Harvard co-captain Jim Christian gave the Crimson its first lead of the day with 12:12 left in the third, but Fighting Irish midfielder Devin Ryan would tie the score with just 5.5 seconds to play in the period.

Notre Dame pulled ahead early in the fourth, but Harvard came roaring back, as McBride and Nowak scored goals ten seconds apart to retake the lead at 5-4. McBride tied the game off a feed from junior attacker Jay Wich with 13:10 remaining. The freshman attacker would finish the afternoon with a career-high four points.

“My defensemen lost me, and I kind of just snuck back-door,” McBride said. “Jay Wich made a great feed and found me right on the doorstop.”

Seconds later, Nowak gave Harvard the 6-5 lead on an unassisted goal.

Ryan would tie the score with 6:16 remaining in regulation, seting the stage for Harvard’s late-game heroics.

Harvard will seek to extend its winning streak to three games when it hosts Colgate tomorrow night. The Crimson’s last chance for an Ivy win will come in its season finale Saturday at home against Dartmouth.

“We’ve worked too hard this year to give up,” Vap said. “We’ve got two more to go, and we’re going to finish 2-0.”