Sophomore goalkeeper Harry Krieger remains on his knees after Cornell’s David Lau put away a last-gasp score with a little over a minute left to play in Saturday’s game at Harvard Stadium. For the third straight year, Harvard dropped a 13-12 decision against the Big Red.

Thirteen to twelve.

It’s the score that has haunted the Harvard men’s lacrosse team’s last two matches against Cornell over the past two years—both one-goal late-game defeats.

But this year was going to be different. Yesterday afternoon, the Crimson had just completed a massive comeback to jump ahead, 9-7, on the No. 6 Big Red. Cornell fought back to tie things up, but Harvard would not back down and grabbed the lead again, 11-9.

The Big Red scored two straight, and the game was tied once more. But Crimson senior attack Matt Hull took a pass from classmate Dean Gibbons in front of the net and fired a shot past Cornell goalie Andrew West with 5:03 left in the game to put Harvard up one, 12-11.

Harvard was on the verge of pulling the upset, of beating the Big Red for the first time since 1999.

But 43 seconds later, Cornell’s David Lau picked up a rebound that came off a blocked attempt by Crimson goaltender Harry Krieger and fired it right past him. In the blink of an eye, the game was tied.

With 1:18 remaining, it was Lau again who took a pass, moved left, and beat Krieger with a ground-ball shot to put the Big Red ahead.

Harvard was unable to score the rest of the way, and the final buzzer sounded with the Crimson dropping a heartbreaker to Cornell once again.

Thirteen to twelve.

“Another tough one to Cornell,” junior co-captain Kevin Vaughan said. “We’re pretty crushed right now. We thought we had it.”

The Big Red (8-2, 4-0 Ivy) dominated the first period, shutting out Harvard (6-4, 1-2) defensively and outshooting the Crimson, 19-7.

After both teams turned the ball over on their opening possessions, Krieger and Cornell starting goaltender AJ Fiore—who was replaced in the third quarter—each made a series of saves early in the contest.

At 6:11, the Big Red got on the board first after Lau came around the net on the left side, made a move around his defender, and fired a low shot that beat Krieger.

Two minutes later, after a string of good ball movement, Cornell’s Roy Lang cut towards the net and was double-teamed, leaving teammate Steve Mock wide-open in front, and Mock put the Big Red up, 2-0.

“We were playing a ton of defense [in the first],” Vaughan said. “We really didn’t have the ball for so long...they would tire our D down, and that creates offense.”

Fifty-five seconds into the subsequent period, Cornell’s Mike O’Neil took a pass in front of the net, spun around his defender, and, diving low, put it past Krieger. Under a minute later, the Big Red’s Jack Dudley fired one into the high-right corner of the net to give Cornell a 4-0 advantage

“We dug ourselves into a hole,” Crimson coach Chris Wojcik ’96 said. “It’s hard to come back from that, especially against a great team like Cornell.”

The Crimson finally got on the board at 12:13, when Vaughan sprinted around the defense in a left-to-right semi-circle and beat Fiore from 20 yards out. After Cornell’s Max Feely was penalized for pushing, Harvard’s Ryan Stevens took a pass and sent a low sidearm shot into the corner of the net to cut the Big Red lead to 4-2.

Cornell’s Rob Pannell—the Ancient Eight’s leading scorer—responded with a goal at 9:58. But Vaughan added his second tally of the contest after sprinting towards the pipes uncontested to make it 5-3.

The score would hold until the end of the half, but the Crimson would come out and dominate the third quarter.

At 12:43, Stevens stutter-stepped and juked out his defender from 10 yards out, beating Fiore low. Teammate Daniel Eipp made a move inside and tied the game under a minute later.

Lau responded with his second score of the afternoon at 10:38, but Vaughan one-upped him with a hat trick to tie things at 6-6.

Stevens added a man-up goal at 6:45 to give Harvard its first lead of the game. At 4:17, Crimson midfielder Jack Doyle took a pass 20 yards out, cut over the middle, and beat Fiore. Stevens scored his fourth goal of the contest—a career-high—on a low diving shot 10 seconds later to put Harvard up, 9-6.

“My two linemates, Kevin [Vaughan] and Terry [White], were doing a lot of dodging,” Stevens said. “They were drawing the slides, and then I was able to get in the gaps in the defense, and they got me the ball. Luckily, it was going in.”

Lau responded again with a man-up goal to cut the lead to 9-7 going into the final period, and Mock scored 53 seconds into fourth, faking Krieger out high and beating him low. Cornell won the ensuing faceoff, and Mock scored again at 13:11 to tie the game.

Hull responded with a goal after a pump fake at 10:49, and under a minute later, teammate Alex White spun and fired an acrobatic fade-away shot over his defender’s shoulder and into the net.

But Dudley and Pannell added their second scores of the contest to tie the game again, and after Hull’s response, Lau’s two goals gave the Big Red the win.

“We didn’t make a play and they did,” Wojcik said. “That’s what it came down to, and in a contest like that, your margin for error is really small.”

Krieger finished with 14 saves, and the Harvard defense held Pannell to just two points—nearly four below his season average. But in the end, that was not enough.

“It’s certainly a tough loss, but I’m proud of our effort,” Wojcik said. “We played hard, we played inspired, we played with a lot of pride, and that’s what our program stands for. That’s what it’s all about.”

—Staff writer Scott A. Sherman can be reached at ssherman13@college.harvard.edu.