Harvard junior midfielder Elaine Belitsos, seen in earlier action, tallied five goals on seven shots in the women’s lacrosse team’s 15-7 win over the Lions on Saturday. Belitsos also scooped up three groundballs in the win.

A season’s worth of disastrous second halves may have been redeemed on Saturday, as the women’s lacrosse team dominated Columbia 15-7.

The Crimson (6-8, 1-5 Ivy) held the Lions (7-8, 0-7 Ivy) scoreless for 33 minutes that spanned from late in the first half until even later in the second half. During that time Harvard scored eight times, with half of those goals coming from sophomore midfielder Elaine Belitsos.

“Before the game started, we had decided that the first team to get to 10 goals was going to be the victorious team,” said sophomore midfielder Allison Kaveney. “We were in a ‘refuse to lose’ mind set, and there was no way Columbia was going to score 10 goals on our defense.”

Belitsos, who has been a potent weapon for the Crimson on both ends of the field, turned in five goals in Saturday’s game.

“[Belitsos] is all over the field when she out there,” said junior midfielder Casey Owens. “There’s no stopping her. She was really heads up and really focused and she had a lot of great looks and great opportunities.”

An overwhelming defensive performance by Harvard stopped all but one Columbia goal in the second half.

Teammates credited freshman goaltender Kathryn Tylander with holding down the Columbia defense.

“There was great direction and leadership from Tylander,” said junior attackman Catherine Sproul, who managed two goals yesterday. “She’s really a source of strength for the defense. They stepped up their communication, stopped fouling and just played really tough D.”

The Crimson’s offensive storm included goals from six different players and hat tricks from Owens and senior midfielder Jen Brooks.

“We were just ready to go,” Owens said. “We weren’t going to take no for an answer. We knew it was a must win situation.”

After trading goals through most of the first half, Lions senior midfielder Maggie Via slipped a shot into the Harvard net to put her team ahead 6-5, with 5:32 left in the half. It would be the last Columbia goal for a while, though. A minute and a half later, Belitsos found the back of the net off assist from freshman midfielder Caroline Hines to tie the score.

Belitsos was back several minutes later to score again with just five seconds remaining in the half.

The Crimson run continued into the second half with Sproul turning in her second goal of the day after just 2:18, off an assist from Brooks. It would be the last goal for either team for 12 minutes.

The opening minutes of the game appeared to foreshadow a slugfest.

Owens garnered the first tally of the game with an unassisted goal just 37 seconds in.