Sophomore Natalie Curtis finished the season with a team-high 36 goals and 40 points and set a Harvard record with her 48 draw controls.

Despite a 5-11 overall record, the 2006 season was not a total loss for the Harvard women’s lacrosse team. The Crimson made the most of its Ivy League season, winning three of five against league opponents.

At nearly .500 in league play (3-4), the Crimson arose victorious in its opener against rival Yale, Harvard’s first defeat of the Bulldogs in 12 years. Junior goalie Kathryn Tylander stopped 60 percent of Yale’s scoring attempts, allowing only three second-half goals in the 11-8 triumph.

“Our coach had reminded us about the history of the rivalry between Harvard and Yale,” sophomore Caroline Simmons said at the time. “We really took that to heart and wanted to beat them.”

The Crimson again defied history in its home opener against Holy Cross. A 6-0 run and 13 saves helped Harvard to its 17-9 win, the first contest since 1997 in which the Crimson scored more than 16 goals.

After a five-game losing streak, the Crimson rediscovered victory, gaining a 10-4 halftime lead and holding off a late Columbia rally to edge the Lions 13-12.

“Everyone was pumped up to play,” freshman Kaitlin Martin said following the game. “We knew we had to win this game.”

Harvard rode the momentum of its second Ivy conquest back to Jordan Field where it defeated Brown, 12-7. The Crimson defense protected the team’s offensive surge, including junior Perry Brown’s first career hat trick, by rejecting every Bear advance in the final 16 minutes and breaking up seven of 16 second-half clear attempts.

Nationally ranked opponents proved to be a different animal altogether. Although the Crimson managed to stay competitive through the first half, it could not halt the second-half runs of its ranked competitors.

It was not the second period but the third that plagued Harvard against unranked teams.

The Crimson rallied in the final 2:40 of regulation to erase a three-goal deficit and send Quinnipiac to a 14-14 overtime, where the Bobcats would ultimately win.

The Crimson again found itself on the wrong side of a one-goal game in a loss against Connecticut. Sophomore Lauren Bobzin hurled the tying goal into the Husky net with four seconds left, but an offside scall prevented the goal from ever ringing up on the scoreboard.

“It was so much harder to lose that way,” Simmons said at the time. “Had we gone into overtime, we would have had the momentum.”

Harvard finally earned a win in a close contest when it squelched a late Gaels rally and beat Saint Mary’s, 14-13, ending a four-game losing streak. The Crimson spread the offensive wealth among 10 different goal-scorers. With a season-concluding loss to Cornell, Harvard ended its season tied with Yale for fifth in the Ivy League, only a game behind Penn.

—Staff writer Courtney M. Petrouski can be reached at petrousk@fas.harvard.edu.