After the Huskies’ Jay Quinn scored on Northeastern’s first attempt, sophomore stroke-specialist Tamara Sobek-Rosnick was stopped by Duffy. Kristen Keating, Abbie Harpstead, and Laura Werner then found the back of the cage for Harvard.

Unfortunately, however, so did three Huskies.

And when Northeastern’s Whitney Shean beat Knoche on the team’s fifth stroke, the scoreboard finally ticked off one more, final goal in the Huskies’ favor.

“It was a fairly even match-up,” Fuller said. “In the end it came down to execution and we just happened to be unlucky. They had some very talented strokers.”

Knoche finished with a grand total of 11 saves, Duffy with seven.

Now, though, the Crimson has its work cut out for it with Ivy foe Cornell on the docket for Sunday. Following the Big Red will be Yale, Boston College, Princeton, Boston University, Dartmouth, and then Columbia to round out the regular season.

Harvard is currently 1-1 in the Ancient Eight, and it may have little wiggle room the rest of the way.

Nationally ranked Northeastern, though—which has now won 11 in a row, good for the best start in program history—is as good a test as any.

“This game brought out a new team in us, a new knowledge that we can overcome losses,” Fuller said. “We still have a shot at doing extremely well in the Ivies. We can play as well as we did today and even better at Cornell.”

The Crimson will find out at noon on Sunday in Ithaca, N.Y.

--J. Patrick Coyne contributed to the reporting of this story.

--Staff writer Pablo S. Torre can be reached at torre@fas.harvard.edu.