"Philomena is great coming off the bench," Caples said. "She's a spark. She is lightning quick, and it's hard for defenses to stop her. She's great in that role. She changes the pace of the game."

Dartmouth, faced with the daunting task of coming back from a 2-0 deficit, fought madly for the rest of the game.

The Big Green put intense pressure on the Harvard net at the end of the first half, and then in the opening minutes of the second half, Dartmouth had a chance on its third penalty corner of the day, but freshman keeper Katie Zacarian made a great save in which she dove down for the stop, hid the ball momentarily, and then swept it out.

The Dartmouth lineup, which features Carolyn Steele from Dartmouth's top-ranked ice hockey team, had the strength to clear the ball long distances and take powerful set shots. The Big Green attack had looked dangerous right from the opening five minutes, in which it earned a pair of penalty corners.

"Dartmouth is well-skilled and tough physically," Caples said. "We just stuck to our plan, maintained good possession and numbers in the midfield allowed us to create our attack."

Even with the two-goal lead, Harvard was still aggressive offensively. Freshman forward Kate McDavitt created a solid scoring chance 10 minutes into the second half by maneuvering around the circle, and passing off to Nagle. Three Crimson players had a chance at the rebound after Nagle's shot was stopped, but the opportunity went for naught.

Soon after Nagle had another chance when she took a pass while rushing towards the net side-by-side with Mina Pell, but D'Augustine made the stop. In the following minutes, Pell had a one-on-one chance with D'Augustine coming way out of the net, but Pell could not get around her.