Heading west between Christmas and New Year’s, the Harvard men’s hockey team earned a split in the unfriendly confines of No. 10 North Dakota’s Ralph Engelstad Arena, winning Thursday and losing Friday in a pair of one-goal affairs.

“It does a lot for our confidence,” junior center Kevin Du said. “We proved to ourselves that we could play with any team in the country.”

The Crimson (10-6-1, 7-5-0 ECAC) hadn’t defeated the Fighting Sioux (13-8-1, 6-6-0 WCHA) in Grand Forks since New Year’s Day of 1951.

NORTH DAKOTA 3, HARVARD 2

Matt Smaby’s power-play goal put the Fighting Sioux up 1-0 in Friday’s first period, delighting the 10,598 fans in attendance, but Crimson sophomore Mike Taylor knotted the score with a man-advantage tally nearly 12 minutes into the second frame.

“In my mind,” Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91 said on the radio just after the game, “we carried the play for maybe 80 percent of the action, maybe more.”

But both Donato and Du alluded to the same thing: a pair of North Dakota tallies knocked home just 45 seconds apart as time wound down in the middle frame, giving the Fighting Sioux a 3-1 lead.

“On both those goals, we had full control of the puck,” Donato said, adding, “they have some guys who can make plays.”

Crimson rookie Nick Coskren closed the gap to one at 12:49 in the final period, but Harvard couldn’t force another goal from its late pressure.

“We ran out of time,” said Donato, whose team mustered 15 final-frame shots on UND goaltender Jordan Parise. “We had them on the ropes.”

HARVARD 1, NORTH DAKOTA 0

Taylor’s wrister from the right circle just 1:31 into the third frame put the Crimson up Thursday night, and from there on out, Harvard battled to stave off a 16-shot final-frame attack from the Fighting Sioux.

But Crimson netminder John Daigneau stopped each and every puck—and 29 on the night—for his third career shutout in front of a sellout crowd of 10,748 fans.

North Dakota pulled goalie Philippe Lamoureux with 1:34 remaining, tacking another skater onto the man-advantage created by Jimmy Fraser’s interference minor with 2:03 left to play, but Harvard made Taylor’s goal stand up amidst a flurry of late activity.

NOTES: Ralph Engelstad Arena, which cost more than $100 million to build before the 2001-2002 season, “was great,” said Du. But despite the fact that it is much grander than the rinks of the ECAC, Du added, “I don’t think we were in awe at all.”…Sophomore Tyler Magura played in front of his home crowd for the first time since he flew east to Cambridge. The center, who graduated as one of Fargo South’s valedictorians in 2003, was held without a point in either game. But on the radio immediately following Thursday’s game, Donato laughed that he “found it a little funny that [Magura] was able to get his name on the score-sheet a couple times” anyway, with two minor penalties…The two-game trip to the Midwest marks Harvard’s last non-conference scheduling besides the Beanpot in February. The Crimson is now 3-1-1 outside the ECAC, and four of those contests have been against top-15 teams.

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Seesel can be reached at seesel@fas.harvard.edu.