But it was just when Keating went down that the Crimson offense stepped up. Instead of letting things spiral out of control—as happened in Harvard’s past three games—the Crimson got a spark from an unlikely source.

Freshman forward Nina Kucharczyk, a field hockey walk-on, notched her first goal of the season and her team’s first goal of the game in the 16th minute.

“I feel like I’m part of the team now,” said Kucharczyk, who was recruited to play lacrosse but joined an undermanned field hockey squad.

Almost as bizarre as Kucharczyk’s journey to the field hockey team was her first score. Just minutes before her goal, Kucharczyk heard a call from the Harvard sideline telling her to come out for a substitution.

As Kucharczyk ran over to the scorer’s table, a Crimson possession began to formulate and a coaching assistant yelled at Kucharczyk to remain on the field. Kucharczyk then sprinted toward the goal where Bannon had stolen the ball in front of the net. After Bannon’s shot was batted away by Nagengast, Kucharczyk collected the rebound and put away the score.

“I’m glad I didn’t come out when I saw supposed to,” Kucharczyk said with a smile.

Harvard would tie the score minutes later, this time in a more traditional manner. A string of crisp passes put the ball in the UNH semi-circle, where Harvard was able to earn its first penalty corner of the game.

Off the penalty corner, Sophomore Georgia McGillvray fed Dickson, who slapped it past the Wildcats goalie to even the score at two.

UNH would attempt to create separation from the Crimson again, scoring with less than two minutes left in the first half and then off a penalty corner just six minutes into the second frame.

But once again Harvard managed to claw its way back into the game, with the two goals from Dickson and Kimmel.

“I thought we did a great job of coming back and putting four goals in the net,” Tassopoulos said. “It’s just incredible after their scoring on us, especially so early.”

Unfortunately for the home team, it could not hold up in overtime. The defeat marks the Crimson’s fourth straight loss and seventh in the team’s last eight games. But after being outscored 23-4 in the squad’s previous three matches, last night’s overtime loss signaled an improvement.

“Coming off a couple tough games, I think we really picked it up,” Kimmel said. “Things were working out there.”