Through its first four games, the Harvard men’s lacrosse team searched for a spark—and a win—to ignite a season spent at the bottom of the Ivy League standings.

And with one shot last Saturday, things finally came together.

A quick start and a game-winning strike from senior midfielder Carle Stenmark with 1:05 left in the first overtime gave the Crimson (1-4, 1-0 Ivy) a 7-6 win over Penn (4-3, 1-1 Ivy) in front of 1,020 fans in the season’s last game at Jordan Field.

“I’d been getting to the goal no matter what, so I just went as hard as I could and I was ready for a hit,” Stenmark said. “I just put it on the cage and it went in.”

The victory in the conference opener—which snapped a seven-game losing streak for the team dating back to last season—came on the strength of a fierce Harvard comeback in the fourth quarter.

Down 6-4 entering the final frame, the quarter was defined by a pair of unassisted scores. The first came from sophomore midfielder Nick Smith, who went the length of the field while dodging Quaker defenders to score with 9:41 to play in regulation. Timeouts from each team in the next two and a half minutes heightened the tension before freshman midfielder Jason Duboe mimicked Smith, slicing through the Penn defense on his way to a score at the 6:28 mark to tie the game at six.

The two goals followed a scoreless third period for the Crimson, a 15-minute stretch in which the team managed just five shots.

“They started kind of moving in to protect the fast break, so that kind of slowed us down,” Stenmark said. “They had a really good system defense. It was packed in and really good at sliding and not letting any easy goals up.”

It was an adjustment the Quakers had to make after the opening minutes. Harvard jumped out to a 3-0 advantage less than four minutes into the action, as senior attackmen Evan Calvert and Greg Cohen teamed up to give the Crimson its biggest lead all season. Calvert scored twice in the span of a mere five seconds and assisted on Cohen’s goal en route to a 3-1 lead after a quarter. Penn stormed back to tie the score at three apiece, before Calvert fed Cohen again to make the score 4-3. A Quaker goal 37 seconds before halftime tied the score heading into the break.

“It kind of goes back to the choices teams are making, whether they’re going to shut off the crease and play Evan or not,” Harvard coach Scott Anderson said.

“I think we were able to build up a lot of momentum early because our faceoff guy, [co-captain] John Henry Flood, was doing an excellent job getting fast breaks,” Stenmark said. “That’s what we wanted, seeing how one of our best shooters on the team is Evan Calvert.”

Cohen and Calvert were neutralized in the overtime, but with the Crimson maintaining possession for the entirety of the period thanks to Flood’s control of the faceoff, Harvard still had a number of chances to win it.

”Greg had a couple good opportunities in there, but Carle did a great job coming from the wing and getting a shot off,” Anderson said. “We did a really good job with shot selection, and we had a couple of opportunities in overtime. It was nice to finally put that one in.”

Stenmark saw a crease in the Penn defense from his position on the wing before jumping in front of the goal and guiding the ball through. As the game-winning shot released, he received a big hit from a Penn defender which actually kept him down on the field for a few moments after the Crimson stormed the field to congratulate him.

“He got hit up high, under the ribs, so I think he got the wind knocked out of him,” Anderson said. “But he’s alright.”

“I decided, you know, what the heck?” Stenmark said. “It’s senior year—we’ve got to win.”

That win puts Harvard back in position to make another improbable tournament run following the winless start. Stenmark emphasized the added importance of getting a victory in the conference-opener.

“It’s huge, especially in the Ivy League,” he said. “It’s kind of a new season.”

For Anderson, however, it was just getting that first notch in the win column—against any team—that provided some much-needed relief.

“It’s harder and harder to practice with confidence, it’s harder and harder to come out every day and do your best job on the practice field when you don’t have any success,” he said. “This has validated what we’ve been doing throughout the course of the season.”

—Staff writer Malcom A. Glenn can be reached at mglenn@fas.harvard.edu.