After Baribeau and Tegan Schroder were whistled for consecutive penalties at 13:01 and 13:29, the Crimson set up on a 5-on-3 advantage. Forty seconds later, freshman Jillian Dempsey won a faceoff and passed the puck back to senior Anna McDonald.
McDonald put a shot on net, and though Dahm made the initial save, junior Liza Ryabkina scooped up the rebound to make it a 2-1 game.
The Golden Knights settled down to knot the score again three minutes later on an unassisted tally from Brittany Mulligan. After making a defensive stop, Mulligan beat out two defenders to backhand the puck into the top right corner of the net.
Just like that, the momentum was back in the hands of Clarkson as the squads headed into the break.
The Golden Knights pressured Bellamy in an early-period power play, but the rookie stood up to the test, making three saves on the penalty kill. Bellamy finished with 19 saves.
Harvard had its chances in the third, putting seven shots on net, but with the clock winding down and overtime looming, Clarkson found a way to light the lamp.
“It’s just the fight that’s in that team,” Buesser said. “They were playing for their season there...They have a lot of great personalities on that team, and they just never go away.”
After the Golden Knights won a faceoff, Katelyn Ptolemy took a hard slapshot from the top of the zone.
Kosziwka was there to push the puck between Bellamy’s legs and give the home team the lead—the third time this season that Clarkson has staged a late-game comeback against the Crimson.
“Sometimes it’s a lot of luck,” Stone said. “I think we can do a better job closing out periods and closing out games...but again, hockey’s so free-flowing that momentum swings [matter]. Good teams don’t go away easily, and they’re a good team.”
Stone pulled Bellamy with 1:08 to play, but Harvard couldn’t find the equalizer. Clarkson advanced to the championship game, where it fell, 4-3, to Cornell in overtime—giving the Big Red the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Harvard received an at-large bid to the national tournament and was named the No. 4 seed last night. It will host Cornell in the quarterfinals this weekend.
“You have to give [Clarkson] a lot of respect for how hard they worked,” Buesser said. “It’s nothing we can hold our heads down about—we can’t feel bad about how we played.”
—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kleist@fas.harvard.edu.