After Dartmouth was forced to punt at the beginning of the second frame, Gordon received and ran for three consecutive first downs to get into Big Green territory.

The Crimson kept the drive going with key plays from Winters and Scales to make it to the red zone, where Gordon stepped up again.

The running back scored his second touchdown on a 15-yard run, thanks to a crucial block by junior fullback Anthony Rotio.

With the score 14-0 in the home team’s favor, Dartmouth finally put together a run to get into scoring position but failed to execute. Big Green quarterback Connor Kempe threw a pass that was intercepted by Harvard senior defensive back Ryan Barnes on the Crimson 18-yard line.

“Offensively we were inconsistent, made some foolish mistakes that cost us—turnovers,” Teevens said. “We didn’t put enough things together.”

Harvard capitalized on its opponent’s mistakes and took advantage of some timely penalties to convert the turnover. After a 62-yard drive, Scales ran in the ball from one yard out to make the score 21-0.

But Dartmouth put together a 63-yard drive of its own and scored its first touchdown on a 12-yard pass to Tanner Scott with 17 seconds left on the clock. This brought the Big Green within two scores of the Crimson before halftime.

Harvard came back from the break with a bang, racking up another touchdown within three minutes of the second half’s start. After Scales ran to get the ball past midfield, Gordon put together a spectacular 48-yard run to score.

The running back also pointed out the contributions made by his teammates.

Dartmouth responded to the Crimson’s big play with a 43-yard pass to Scott and a subsequent touchdown with about ten minutes left in the quarter.

But after a failed onsides kick, Harvard got a quick rebound of its own two minutes later, when Gordon recorded his third touchdown of the game.

With the score 35-14, the Crimson committed a string of penalties.

“We have not had a great time dealing with prosperity as a football team,” Murphy said. “We have to finish better. We have to play for 60 minutes.”

But the team recovered from its miscues and got back to scoring.

Before the end of the third quarter, Winters connected with freshman tight end Kyle Juszczyk for a 31-yard touchdown to bring the score to 42-14.

In the game’s final frame, the teams exchanged drives, but when a Crimson punt was blocked by the Big Green’s Pete Pidermann, receiver Michael Reilly returned the ball 16 yards for a touchdown with 5:06 left on the clock.

It looked like Dartmouth may have had a final push left, but Harvard held the score to 42-21 and secured the victory.

“We were a little bit better team, a little bit more seasoned than the Dartmouth team today,” Murphy said, “but they played with tremendous effort, obviously, right to the end and in a lot of ways gave us all we could handle.”