When the Harvard men’s lacrosse team takes on Georgetown, one thing is assured—the game is going to be close.

Coming into Saturday’s contest, each of the squads’ meetings the last three seasons was decided by one goal. In 2012, the outcome was no different, with the No. 20 Crimson dropping an 11-10 contest in Washington, D.C.

After losing by one goal against Hofstra last weekend, Harvard looks to be continuing a disturbing trend of dropping tight games that began last season, when it missed the NCAA Tournament thanks to four one-goal defeats.

On Saturday, Harvard (2-2) went into the fourth period down, 9-7, before evening the match on two scores by sophomore attackman Daniel Eipp. But the Hoyas (2-1) responded with two goals of its own, and junior attack Jeff Cohen’s response, with 4:45 left on the clock, was all the Crimson would be able to muster the rest of the way.

“I think [losing by one is] worse than losing big, because you know you’re right there with a chance to win,” Eipp said. “That was our downfall last year, so we can’t let that happen again this year.”

Junior midfielder Alex White got the scoring going 3:39 into the contest, taking a pass from Cohen and beating Georgetown goalie Matt Winter.

Jason McFadden and Dan McKinney would respond with two unassisted goals for Georgetown before Cohen found freshman defenseman Stephen Jahelka with 2:55 to go in the period. Jahelka, Harvard’s top recruit, fired a shot past Winter for his first collegiate goal.

After the Crimson’s Joe Petrucci was called for slashing 30 seconds later, Brian Casey beat Harvard junior goalie Harry Krieger for a man-up score to put the Hoyas up, 3-2, after one.

Tri-captain Kevin Vaughan responded to tie the game 1:24 into the second. But a sixty-second illegal body check penalty on senior midfielder Andrew Pataki gave Zack Angel and McFadden the ability to add two more man-up scores to give Georgetown back the lead. The Hoyas would finish 5-of-6 on man-up opportunities on the day.

With the scoring coming quickly, Eipp found freshman attack Will Walker, who beat Winter at the 10:47 mark to cut the Harvard deficit to 5-4. Despite the four goals in the first five minutes, neither team scored for the remainder of the period until Georgetown’s Travis Comeau slipped a shot past Krieger with just 19 seconds to go.

“I made a bad play at the end of the half, and they came down and scored that goal,” Vaughan said. “It was definitely a momentum-shifter. You hate to give up any goals in the last minute of any quarter.”

The third period was dominated by six penalties—four on the Hoyas—which allowed each squad to add two man-up scores.

Cohen added his second goal of the game just 55 seconds in to cut Georgetown’s lead to 6-5, but McFadden responded with a man-up score a minute later. After the Hoyas’ Zac Guy was called for slashing, Eipp (from Walker) and Cohen (from Eipp) tied the game at seven with man-up goals just 45 seconds apart.

“Jeff’s the guy we look to to score goals when we need them,” Vaughan said. “He’s the guy that’s keeping the boat afloat, and we need more guys playing like him to be successful.”

But Angel added his second score of the contest with 9:07 to go, and after a slashing penalty on senior defenseman Paul Pate, Comeau scored his second late-in-a-period goal by beating Krieger with 1:13 remaining in the third.

Harvard tied the game behind Eipp early in the fourth. But after falling behind once more, the Crimson was unable to take advantage of a number of late chances to even things up again, despite outshooting Georgetown 9-2 in the period.

“I think we came out very focused in the second half with some momentum,” Eipp said. “But we made some key mistakes with possession of the ball that led the loss. We had a couple of opportunities to score at the end of the game, and we couldn’t make it work.”

Eipp and Cohen each registered five points on a hat trick with two assists on the afternoon, giving Cohen a team-high 13 goals through four games this season. Angel and McFadden had hat tricks for Georgetown, while Krieger and Winter both made 12 saves.

Freshman midfielder Keegan Mitchel won 15-of-22 faceoffs and collected seven ground balls as Harvard won both those categories handily but—thanks in part to 23 turnovers—was unable to take the contest.

“We committed a lot of penalties on the defensive end, committed a lot of turnovers on the offensive end, and those two things definitely led to a lot of their goals,” Vaughan said. “It’s not for a lack of talent or a lack of will that we lost this game. But we’ve got to be more disciplined, limit the turnovers, and try to play a bit smarter.”

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