Both teams came out ready to go in the second half.

Duke scored first, but midfielder Gabriel Mendola responded for Harvard with one of the best individual plays of the night.

The junior took the ball down the middle of the field, receiving a series of checks from a Duke defensive-midfielder. Although none of them could stop Mendola, one of the checks was so hard that the defender lost control of his own stick. Mendola then took off towards the goal, split two Blue Devil defensemen, and scored.

Duke went up again, but the Crimson answered. Sophomore midfielder Murphy Vandervelde, who until one week ago had not scored in his career for Harvard, scored his fifth goal of the week, man-up, after a Blue Devil slashing penalty.

With only eight seconds remaining in the quarter, White got the ball on Duke’s endline, drove around the goal and drew a penalty before time could expire. Vandervelde then scored his second, again man-up, to give the Crimson the lead, 8-7, 18 seconds into the fourth period.

The Blue Devils evened the score, but after another Duke penalty Harvard hit back. The Crimson man-up unit spun the ball around the back of the cage, Dwyer threw it to Vandervelde, and the sophomore scored, securing his second hat-trick in as many games.

Schwartz then added his second goal for the Crimson, giving the team a 10-8 lead, before the Blue Devils would rally and eventually win the game.

”It’s always tough to lose,” Schwartz said. “The positive for that game is that we took a step in the right direction which is good heading in to more [Ivy League] play.”