“These games are difficult because [Princeton, Michigan, and Indiana] are teams that know how to capitalize on mistakes,” Balding said. “Sometimes, you can get away with making a mistake in the game, but against teams like these, making errors will cost you goals.”

Harvard pulled within two scores, 5-7, with five minutes remaining in the fourth period, but ill-timed exclusions and turnovers halted any momentum that it had gained.

“Moving forward, there’s things that we want to do, on both offense and defense, just to make sure that the whole team is on the same page all the time,” Balding said. “It’s just becoming more familiar with the systems that we want to run and being able to be adaptable.”

No. 15 INDIANA 10, No. 13 HARVARD 7

Indiana (17-6, 2-1 CWPA) jumped out to a 4-0 second-period lead and held off a late Harvard charge to win, 10-7, evening up the season series at 1-1 after losing to the Crimson in overtime earlier this season.

Balding’s third consecutive hat trick and Harrington’s 12 saves in goal spearheaded Harvard’s performance. Hoosier senior center Candyce Schroeder snapped the back of the net three times and redshirt freshman Karrie Kozokar scored thrice to lead Indiana.

The Crimson, playing in its first conference game of 2016, fell behind early and never led. Saturday’s loss to the Hoosiers also snapped Harvard’s three game conference-opener winning streak.

Staff writer Bryan Hu can be reached at bhu01@college.harvard.edu.