Play went back-and-forth for the next few minutes, but a seventh North Dakota goal crushed Harvard’s hopes of staging another comeback like the one against University of New Hampshire earlier in the season, in which Harvard erased a four-goal deficit in the third period to win.

“We battled hard,” freshman forward Petr Placek said. “But we had a few unlucky calls and unlucky goals against us, and it was hard to get back into the game.”

The game ended with UND on top, 7-3, only a couple of hours before the new year.

HARVARD 4, NORTH DAKOTA 4

In the first of the two-game series, Harvard tied North Dakota, 4-4, Thursday night in a back-and-forth overtime battle.

The Crimson got on the board first. With just under five minutes left to play in the first period, freshman defenseman Patrick McNally slipped one past the goalie to give Harvard the 1-0 lead.

But UND came out hot in the second, notching back-to-back goals within the first two minutes of the frame. Killorn, who finished the game 17-4 in faceoffs, continued the scoring frenzy and netted one of his own less than a minute later to tie the game at two.

Though the rest of the period saw back-and-forth play, North Dakota found the back of the net two more times in the period to give the home team a 4-2 edge going into the second break.

Despite its struggles in the second period, Harvard took control of the third frame. Junior forwards Alex Fallstrom and Marshall Everson each tallied a goal midway through the final frame of regulation, propelling the Crimson into overtime with the score knotted at four.

Starting with a penalty early on, Harvard found itself on its heels in overtime and failed to record a single shot. North Dakota had four, but freshman goaltender Steve Michalek, who had 33 saves on the night, corralled them all, and the game ended with both teams frozen at four.'

—Staff writer Taryn I. Kurcz can be reached at tkurcz13@college.harvard.edu.