Senior forward Alex Killorn pulled through at critical moments for the Crimson this weekend against Yale and Brown. The Montreal, Quebec native scored three goals, two of them game-winners, to help Harvard break its winless streak and move up in the ECAC standings.

Playing in front of a sold out Bright Hockey Center crowd and a far larger national television audience Friday night, the Harvard men’s hockey team needed somebody to finally step up.

Facing Ivy rival Yale, the team was badly in need of a win, having not gotten one since Dec. 10.

So it turned to its best scorer and assistant captain.

And Alex Killorn rose to the challenge.

The senior scored his second goal of the night with 1:19 left in the game, giving the Crimson a dramatic 4-3 victory.

“All year, we’ve been trying to put a full game together, and [Friday night] it seemed like everything just came together,” Killorn said. “That last goal at the end was exciting [after] being in so many close games throughout the year, so we were pretty happy with that.”

The following evening, in front of another sellout home crowd, Killorn did it again.

This time, the forward scored a bit earlier—with eight minutes remaining in the final period—but the goal nonetheless proved to be a game-winner in Harvard’s 3-1 victory.

“We said we had to find a way to win that type of game,” Crimson coach Ted Donato ’91 said. “Fortunately we had some guys step up and make some big plays.”

The two late tiebreaking goals were especially important for a Harvard team that had gone to overtime in eight of its previous 11 contests and had already set a program record with eight draws on the year.

“You know what’s on the line when it’s a tie game,” Killorn said. “And I think you dial in a little bit more, knowing that if you score the next goal, especially with the time remaining, it could be a game-winner.”

That was just what Killorn did this weekend when his flair for the dramatic helped a resurgent Crimson squad reach fourth place in the ECAC standings, a position within striking distance of the teams directly above it.

And the senior’s tallies were not just timely; they were also impressive.

In his game-winner against Yale—just three minutes after the Bulldogs had tied the game themselves—Killorn took a long cross-ice pass from junior forward Marshall Everson and got loose on a breakaway. His first shot was blocked by Yale goalie Jeff Malcolm, but Killorn followed through with his backhand and put back his own rebound in traffic, finishing with an ebullient fist pump before he was mobbed by his teammates.

“Earlier in the period, I had like the exact same play, a two-on-one,” Killorn said. “I ended up shooting it high, and I didn’t want to do that again.... There was a lot going on. I got the shot off and it just ended up going through his legs.”