“We had to finish the game with our backup goalie playing the field,” Katzer said. “We had three guys in the pool who had played maybe five minutes the entire season. This was from midway though the fourth quarter in through overtime.”

“The Bucknell game was one of the most impressive games I’ve been a part of in my career,” Zepfel added. “That’s going to go down as one of my favorite memories ever. “

With only seven men eligible to compete, the lengthy back-and-forth competition likely took a toll on Harvard’s remaining players.

Freshman two-meter John Holland-McCowan netted four goals in the game—three in the fourth quarter alone—but his efforts were not enough to overtake the Bison.

NAVY 20, HARVARD 5

Navy (24-7, 5-3) dominated the Crimson Friday afternoon on its way to claiming second place in the Eastern final.

While Harvard put forth one of its most cohesive defensive efforts this season at first, the Crimson men were simply outmatched by the strength and speed of Navy’s talent and sent into the loser’s bracket for the remainder of the tournament.

Less than one minute into the game, junior two-meter Max Eliot put Harvard up 1-0, but the Crimson was unable to come up for air after that.

Navy scored four unanswered goals following Eliot’s score and continued at such a pace for the remainder of the game.

Harvard relied on its depth, rotating through most of its roster throughout the game.

By the second half, Navy had easily worn down the Crimson, who was unable to provide an effective resistance to the Navy offense.

This, combined with long droughts in scoring, resulted in a dismal showing for the Crimson and rough start to the weekend’s play.

“They have a lot of depth, and they throw waves of players at you,” Katzer said. “We hung on for as long as we could. But at least, the younger guys learn from playing against [teams] of [Navy’s] caliber.”

—Staff writer Patrick Galvin can be reached at galvin@college.harvard.edu.