It was the lone bright spot for a Harvard squad that managed only 16 shots in the first two periods—eight of which, of course, came in the first five minutes of play.

But this late, small burst of energy was spearheaded, in large part, by Murphy’s tenacious play.

The forward produced similar passes in the later minutes, but every time—as was the case for the entire night—the intended Crimson recipient was a step behind, a second too late, a foot off the mark.

“We didn’t do a good job making them play in their own zone,” said Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91 of a Raiders squad that has now taken six of its last seven games. “They’re a good offensive team, and they like to play up-tempo, but we didn’t make them stop and play defense in their own zone much.”

Donato echoed, almost exactly, the sentiments of his coaching counterpart across the ice, Don Vaughan.

“We wanted to play an up-tempo game, and I think we did that,” the Colgate coach said. “We were able to match their speed.”

And while that Crimson speed appeared just a step behind, perhaps rusty after a 15-day layoff, the Raiders drew more than enough inspiration from its embarrassing, 5-1 loss to the Northeastern Huskies just the weekend before.

“We still had the Northeastern game in our mind all week in practice, and we knew we wanted to get beyond that,” Vaughan said, “and I think coming in here and playing Harvard was exactly the motivator that we needed.”

The Crimson would not strike again despite a string of close calls in the third period—a close-range rebound missed by senior Brendan Bernakevitch, a pair of wide-right slapshots by freshman Mike Taylor, a blistering offering from Welch that was denied and a frustratingly close chance by sophomore Dylan Reese with less than a minute remaining.

“But for a couple that just went wide, we might still be out there,” Vaughan said.

Meanwhile, Colgate managed to beat Harvard goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris three times, the result of a couple fortuitous bounces and a whole lot of hustle.

“They just parked themselves in front of the net and tried to stay there,” Grumet-Morris said, “and that’s what good offensive teams do.”

And what the Crimson did not Friday night.

Said Donato, “We knew coming in that we couldn’t have anything but our best to come away with a victory.”

And though the coach allowed that “it’s easy to look for excuses,” he concluded that “in my mind, we did too many things poorly to rely on excuses.”

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Seesel can be reached at seesel@fas.harvard.edu.