Just 1:45 into the third, Kohanchuk was sent to the box for cross-checking, giving Harvard its third power-play opportunity of the evening.

Ryabkina didn’t waste the chance, firing another one-timer—this one assisted by tri-captain Leanna Coskren and Pucci—past Terrier netminder Kerrin Sperry to level the score at two.

It was the fourth straight game that the Crimson’s top power-play unit—composed of Ryabkina, Coskren, Pucci, Buesser, and senior Katharine Chute—found the back of the net.

“We’re getting better, we’re getting used to each other,” Stone said. “We’re getting better looks at the net, which is really important. Kids are possessing the puck a little bit more, which is good. We’re not throwing it around.”

But things quickly unraveled for Harvard, as BU found the net twice in the span of 28 seconds to push its lead back up to 4-2.

“I think everybody was just really excited [after the tying goal], and people started feeling like, ‘Yeah, we can do this,’” Ryabkina said. “It was unfortunate that they scored pretty shortly after.”

With 16:19 on the clock, Wakefield knocked a pass from Kaleigh Fratkin past an out-of-position Bellamy to put the Terriers ahead by a score. Jill Cardella followed with a quick transition goal of her own off assists from Kohanchuk and Catherine Ward to kill the Crimson’s comeback bid.

“Just young mistakes, I think,” Stone said. “We are young, but we also need to be a little bit sharper.”

Poulin added her second goal of the game with six minutes to play to give BU a 5-2 lead. But the Crimson kept battling until the end, and with 0.3 seconds left on the clock, Chute slipped a puck past Sperry to make the final score 5-3.

Junior Alisa Baumgartner and sophomore Whitney Kennedy recorded assists.

The loss marks the conclusion both of the 2010 portion of Harvard’s schedule and of the toughest stretch of the Crimson’s season. Harvard has played ranked opponents in six of its last seven games and has gone 2-4 in those contests.

“We had a few bad steps and mistakes, and that hurt us,” Stone said. “We’ve got to play pretty perfect defense, I think. But overall, our effort was unbelievable...And now it’s a matter of us getting better and better.”

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