Harvard and Notre Dame first met in early November, when the Fighting Irish convincingly defeated the Crimson, 7-0. But Harvard stayed competitive throughout in the teams’ second meeting this season, as Harvard battled its way to a 4-3 victory.

“We got smoked [last time],” Mahlangu said. “But we all came out [Saturday] with an unquenchable fire; we all wanted to win. And I think that’s what really just kept everyone going.”

In its first dual match of the season, the Crimson received strong production from both Mahlangu and Steinroeder, who paired to play doubles and dominate their opponents en route to an 8-0 victory.

“We play a lot of doubles in practice, so I feel like we were all pretty prepared for the matches,” Mahlangu said. “Alex always comes out with a lot of energy, so I just always try to match him.”

On the singles side, Mahlangu continued his solid play by defeating Wyatt McCoy at the No. 5 position. In what was the last match to finish, Mahlangu dropped the first set but rallied to win his final two sets, the second coming in a tiebreak.

Steinroeder racked up his second victory of the day in the No. 2 singles spot, soundly defeating Blas Moros by a score of 6-4, 6-3.

MacMaster also claimed a singles victory, winning in straight sets at the No. 4 position.

With Nguyen injured, Chaudhuri played at the No. 1 singles spot and lost to Greg Andrews, the reigning Big East Player of the Year, in three sets. Hu and Lam both suffered straight set defeats.

“We came out with a lot of energy,” Mahlangu said. “We got the doubles points right away, and everyone was pretty fired up because it was the first dual match of the season. We didn’t let down, we kept fighting the entire time, and we ended up winning.”

—Staff writer David Steinbach can be reached at dsteinbach@college.harvard.edu

—Staff writer Samantha Lin can be reached at samanthalin@college.harvard.edu