But four minutes into the third, the Crimson was able to find the equalizer.

Streaking along the boards on a three-on-two, freshman forward Greg Gozzo centered a pass to Ford, who fired a shot from the right circle that deflected off of Big Green goalie Cab Morris. Sophomore forward Petr Placek was right there for the rebound, which he fired through Morris’ legs to tie the game.

“Placek did a really good job of driving the net hard, which opened things up for me,” Ford said. “He made a great play to stop in front of the net, find the puck, and get a good shot off.”

But Beamish’s goal put Dartmouth ahead minutes later, and Harvard was denied its second straight upset victory.

Girard finished with 27 saves to Morris’ 24. Ford paced the Crimson with four shots, while Eric Robinson and Eric Neiley both had that many for the Big Green, which outshot the Crimson, 30-24, overall.

“We really feel we need to do a better job as a team of blocking shots,” Ford said. “Right now it’s probably one of the things other teams are doing quite a bit better than us. That was definitely the case [Saturday] with Dartmouth. That probably had an impact on some of their goals and its something we’re going to try to get better at as the season goes on.”

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