Playing in its first Ivy League matchup of the season, the Crimson men’s lacrosse team (5-1, 1-0 Ivy) outlasted Brown (2-3, 0-1) on the road in Providence, R.I., on Saturday afternoon, 11-7.

Harvard’s current record marks the team’s best start to the season since the 2000 campaign, when it began the year 5-0 but lost six of its final eight.

“We’re excited about the start [to the season],” Crimson coach Chris Wojcik ’96 said. “But we still have our best lacrosse to come...we’re certainly happy with how we started, but we as a team are not about how we start, but how we finish.”

Coming off three straight wins beginning with a victory over the 20th-ranked Georgetown Hoyas, Harvard again kept things tight in the first three periods but used a strong fourth period—in which the Crimson out-scored the Bears, 3-0—to pull away.

Led by hat tricks from co-captain attack Dean Gibbons and sophomore midfielder Ryan Stevens, Harvard notched its first win over Brown since 2007.

“It’s our first time beating Brown in three years, losing in close games each time,” junior attack Jeff Cohen said. “So it’s important to start the Ivy League season off with a win.”

The Crimson came out of the gate shooting, accounting for the first six attempts of the game.

The attack was capped with a goal by Gibbons to give Harvard an early lead with 12:11 remaining in the first period.

The Bears won the ensuing faceoff and traded possessions with the Crimson until finally putting it away on a goal by Brown sophomore midfielder Johnny DePeters with 7:30 on the clock.

Within two minutes, Gibbons added his second tally of the game to give Harvard a 2-1 lead going into the second period.

“I was really impressed with how we played today,” sophomore goalie Harry Krieger said. “Both our offense and our defense seemed to really be clicking.”

In the opening four minutes of the second period, the Crimson extended its lead on goals from Cohen and junior midfielder Terry White to open up a three-goal advantage.

But the Bears were not quite ready to roll over.

Brown responded with four goals of its own, including two from senior Andrew Feinberg, to take the lead with 2:14 to play in the period.

For Harvard, which had to come back from an early deficit against Holy Cross earlier in the week, it seemed it would take another similar effort to come out with the win on its rival’s field.