The Lancers gained a one-goal advantage in the first period, and although they maintained a lead for most of the game, Harvard kept the score close, and DiSilvestro scored one of his three goals on the day in the last frame to force overtime.

But unfortunately for the Crimson, it could not complete the comeback, as the Lancers scored two more goals to finalize the score at 12-10 and send Harvard home empty-handed.

“We definitely didn’t get the wins we would have liked to get because we played such good teams, but the lessons we learned and how much we grew as a team were important,” Minnis says. “It was definitely the springboard to the Easterns.”

The Crimson regained momentum when it returned to Blodgett Pool, handing Cornell and Columbia losses in the Ivy Championship before heading to the CWPA Northern Division Championship.

Facing MIT once again at the Engineers’ home pool, Harvard needed just one win to achieve its goal of making it to the Eastern Championships for the first time in four years.

In another hard-fought overtime battle—this time with their postseason fate on the line—the Crimson’s seniors stepped up their game yet again. Katzer put three goals past the MIT goalie—two of which came in overtime—to earn Harvard its biggest win of the season.

With a spot in the Eastern Championship secured, the Crimson went on to drop its next four games, but finished the tournament and the season with a win over Iona to capture seventh place.

—Staff writer Madeleine Smith can be reached at smith21@college.harvard.edu.