Junior Danny Biega, shown above in earlier action, and the Harvard men's hockey team fell to Princeton, 4-3, on Friday night.

With the score set at 4-2 in Princeton’s favor with a little over eight minutes remaining in the final period, Harvard junior Luke Greiner reenergized the home side when his solo effort found the back of the net. But with 2:12 left, a Tiger power play saw out the clock, leaving the Crimson with a loss in its first conference matchup of the season on Friday night.

"It really does speak a lot to the character of our team that we battled back," captain Ryan Grimshaw said. "We really thought we had it at the end. We weren't going to give up. It was a good effort by us getting back."

Only having played one game thus far—an exhibition contest with Western Ontario early last week—Harvard (0-1, 0-1 ECAC) came out looking for a positive start to its season against a team that already had three games under its belt.

Princeton’s early-season experience showed as the Tigers (3-1, 1-1) jumped out to a 2-0 lead. Princeton’s Brodie Zuk opened the scoring, sneaking one past freshman goalkeeper Steve Michalek with less than a minute left in the first period. Princeton’s Michael Sdao added to the Tigers’ lead five minutes into the second period.

Nine minutes into the second frame, senior Alex Killorn took advantage of a look at net when he received a cross pass from junior Alex Fallstrom. The forward whipped the puck past the left shoulder of the Tiger goalkeeper, cutting the Crimson’s deficit in half.

With the momentum on Harvard’s side, the third period began with both teams playing physically. But it was Princeton’s Aaron Kesselman who came up with a score to put the game nearly out of reach. With 7:29 played, Killorn notched his second goal of the day when a powerful shot from the blue line deflected off a defender’s leg into the net.

Four minutes later, the Tigers’ Eric Carlson put the visitors back up by two. Greiner pulled his team within one with a shot from the left flank, but it was too late, as Princeton managed to run out the clock.

The Crimson faces Quinnipiac Saturday night at 7 p.m.