The Crimson mustered only two shots on goal in that middle frame, while Cornell took 14, the majority of which came from around the crease and close in the circles.

The Big Red outshot Harvard 32-18 on the night, and Cook would notch another power-play, screened, blueline-slapshot goal 6:35 into the third period to ice the 3-1 victory.

The Crimson appeared to lack the legs necessary to surmount the two-goal deficit, one which loomed all the larger against a physical Cornell squad that was granting few handouts.

“They get that lead on you,” Donato said, “[and] it’s awfully tough to do much with it.”

It might have appeared somewhat less impossible, of course, had Friday night’s semifinal not lasted nearly 100 minutes, ending only when Kevin Du netted a breakaway goal 16:01 into the second full overtime.

When Big Red coach Mike Schafer addressed the media on Friday, his team had just clinched a spot in the finals and the puck was just about to drop on the Colgate-Harvard semifinal.

“The only thing I’m hoping for,” Schafer joked when asked which team he would rather face Saturday, “is a five- or six-overtime game that goes until 4 a.m.”

In fact, the Crimson beat the Raiders at 11:42 p.m., and “in all honesty,” Donato said after Saturday’s loss, “maybe our speed was not where we wanted it to be because of [Friday’s] late-night game.”

“I don’t think we really felt comfortable really attacking on the forecheck as much as we would probably have liked,” he said, though he added, “Cornell had a lot to do with that.”

And so the Big Red and Harvard continued their nearly annual exchange of the Whitelaw Trophy—Harvard took the championship game from the Big Red is 2002, while Cornell returned the favor in 2003. The Crimson won the championship from Clarkson last season, and this year, the Whitelaw will travel back to Ithaca, N.Y.

Said Donato, simply, “We were outplayed. I think they deserved to win.”

“Sometimes, at the end of the game,” he added, “you’ve just got to take your hat off and say, ‘Hey, we got outplayed,’ and I think that was the case tonight.”

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