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“You’re not going into a game looking out for… I can’t pronounce his name.”

While Cornell men’s hockey coach Mike Schafer may have had a bit of trouble in his postgame presser Saturday night, the head of the Big Red was right on the money with his assessment: you don’t go into a game looking to shut down a forward with four goals to his name. No matter how difficult that name may be to pronounce.

But hockey’s a funny game, and accordingly, Saturday night belonged to sophomore Lewis Zerter-Gossage. Harvard’s newest top-line right winger netted his first career hat trick over the span of two periods, lifting the No. 12/12 Crimson to a 4-3 victory over rival Cornell at a rowdy, jam-packed Bright-Landry Hockey Center.

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“Obviously coming into the game, I had different priorities than scoring three goals,” Zerter-Gossage said. “I always thought it’d be nice, but I didn’t think scoring my first goal at the Bright would end up being in the same game as my second and third.”

Yet that’s exactly what happened. Zerter-Gossage’s first career Bright-Landry goal came on Harvard’s very first shot of the night, his second was a product of the Crimson’s first power play, and his third served as the game-winner.

Meanwhile, Ryan Donato, the sophomore’s linemate and classmate, assisted on all three goals and scored one of his own. Previously, all three members of the top line—including co-captain Alexander Kerfoot—had spoken about how the combination continued to be a work in progress, so Saturday’s four-goal outburst came as a welcoming sight for the hosts.

“With two new guys on [that line], it’s taken a little bit of time to gel,” Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91 said. “They’ve been working, but now they’re starting to learn each other’s tendencies.”

Nonetheless, penalties nearly spoiled the show. The Crimson (3-0-1, 1-0-1 ECAC) was whistled for six infractions, and Cornell (0-2-1, 0-1-1)—playing without Jeff Kubiak, its leading point-getter from a year ago—turned three of them into power-play goals. Ryan Donato went to the box twice, and each time, the Big Red converted its opportunity within 25 seconds.

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The second such instance occurred with less than a minute to play in the second period. Cornell forward Anthony Angello’s one-timer from just outside the left post cut the Big Red deficit to 4-2. Then with only four seconds to go in the frame, Adam Fox took a holding penalty that led to another goal off a one-timer down low—this time from Cornell captain Jake Weidner—in the opening minute of the third.

“We had a few self-inflicted wounds,” Ted Donato said. “We’re up 4-1 and have the game in a good spot, and then we start the parade to the penalty box.”

Cornell had a chance to blow the roof off the building—which was largely populated by Big Red fans—when a Jacob Olson slash put the visitors on yet another man advantage about a minute after Weidner’s tally. But Cornell came up empty. Harvard actually allowed just four shots across the Big Red’s six power plays; but three of them wound up in the back of the net.

“It’s been a little bit strange because we haven’t been under a lot of pressure,” Ted Donato said of his penalty killing unit. “We’ve done a really good job of denying entrance, we’ve done a really good job of getting to loose pucks. But the chances that we did give up were obviously great chances, so that’s something we’ll continue to work on.”

Even with Cornell failing to connect on its final power play of the contest, Weider’s goal set the stage for a tense final frame. But ultimately, the four goals from Harvard’s first line proved to be enough.

Zerter-Gossage’s big night began 1:25 into the contest after Ryan Donato stole the puck off the stick of Big Red defenseman Holden Anderson and broke free along the left wing. On the developing 2-on-1, Donato fed the puck over to Zerter-Gossage in the slot, and the Montreal native threw a wrister on net that hit senior goaltender Mitch Gillam and trickled in.

Harvard’s 1-for-1 start in the scoring department marked a dramatic shift from its 1-for-42 showing against Colgate the night before. And as Ryan Donato said after the game, once the Crimson got one, they kept on pumping goals in.

Harvard added to its lead with 2:32 remaining in the first, as Zerter-Gossage tipped a Tyler Moy shot past Gillam. Then atoning for a penalty that enabled Cornell to cut the gap in half, Ryan Donato slotted a wrap-around attempt past Gillam late in the second—a goal Schafer described as “the killer” which brought the score to 3-1.

Less than two minutes later, Donato created more trouble for Gillam. His drive to the net forced the puck to squirt over to Zerter-Gossage, who flipped a back-hander over Gillam and skated straight for the Harvard student section to celebrate his first career hat trick.

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The victory marks the Crimson’s first win at home against Cornell since February 2009. The two teams will battle again in Ithaca, New York on Jan. 27, 2017.

“It’s such a great rivalry—much greater than any one person or coach,” Ted Donato said. “For me just to continue to be part of this great rivalry with all the great players that have gone through, it’s pretty fun.”

—Staff writer Jake Meagher can be reached at jake.meagher@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @MeagherTHC.