“I think you’d have to go back and look at a lot of tape to find that happen [to us] over the course of the last year,” said Grumet-Morris, who explained that “in that situation, you’re just trying to make it to the end of the period and regroup in the locker room and take it to overtime.”

And ultimately, Harvard would do just that, when sophomore Kevin Du pushed the puck past Silverthorn on a breakaway to end the game well into a second overtime period, four hours and four minutes after the contest began.

For his part, Raiders coach Don Vaughn could only say, “The way we came back—I’ve had some teams that have had some pretty good comebacks in their days, but I’ll tell you, this one was really special.”

Donato praised Colgate as well, though he did say that the generally airtight Crimson squad “did some things we don’t normally do.”

“It wasn’t pretty from a coach’s perspective,” Donato said, “but I’m happy with the result.”

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