Yale sophomore Alex Thomas had his first career 100-yard rushing performance, finishing with 124 yards on 26 carries, and the Bulldog ball carriers combined for 169 yards—75 more than they had averaged coming into the contest.

“They came out, and we didn’t think they were going to run on us, and they came right at us,” captain Carl Ehrlich said. “They came right at me, they had a lot of inside runs, and they just kept running the ball.”

Harvard had no shortage of chances, first going for it on fourth and 11 from the Yale 24 midway through the second. Winters’ pass to Lorditch went high, and the Crimson faltered on the first of three missed red-zone chances.

Later in the second, Harvard pulled out a trick play of its own on what looked to be a 30-yard field goal attempt by senior Patrick Long. Junior Matt Simpson, the holder and backup quarterback, picked up the ball himself and looked for a target but found none—turning the ball over on downs once again.

The Crimson opened the second half with a strong drive, with a series of runs from Gordon and freshman Treavor Scales bringing up first-and-goal from the five-yard line. But though the first play moved Harvard up to the one, Winters and Gordon couldn’t move the ball over the goal line on three subsequent tries.

“The first spark, even though we came away with zero, was just the great drive,” Murphy said. “And, again, getting punched in the gut by not being able to punch it in, but we felt like we could definitely move the football. We just had to finish, and in the end, we finally did.”

The Crimson caught a late break when Barnes went wide right on a 27-yard field goal attempt at the beginning of the fourth.

“We were up, but we were never quite able to put them away,” Williams said.

And though Harvard’s third-straight win over its rival didn’t bring a third-straight title with it—Penn overwhelmed Cornell, 34-0, to take the crown outright—the class of 2010 went out on top, lingering on the field long after the crimson-clad fans had left it.

“It’s still setting in,” Ehrlich said. “Ending the year with a win, especially in that fashion—it’s unbelievable.”

—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kleist@fas.harvard.edu.