Facing its first real test of the weekend the team defeated No. 18 St. Francis, 9-7, to advance to the conference finals.

In the first quarter neither team was able to claim an advantage with each side scoring three goals each, setting up a tight match down the stretch.

The Terriers were able to pull ahead in the second with four goals to Harvard’s two.

The Crimson was able to change the tide in the second half thanks to an air tight defense and an impressive 11 saves by Ridgely to stymie to ds St. Francis.

“On our team, our defense feeds our offense, so we made sure we weren’t thinking too far ahead, taking everything one possession at a time,” Tafur said. In the third quarter, goals from Blyashov and Owens leveled the score at seven.

Harvard pulled ahead in the fourth with go-ahead goal from Enright and Blyashov got on the board one last time to secure the win.

HARVARD 16, IONA 7

In the first matchup of the weekend, Harvard squared off against six-seed Iona and handily defeated the Gaels 16-7.

“We talked all week about how this was going to be the tone setter and… if we wanted to win a championship we had to play 12 good quarters,” Minnis said. “We jumped out to an 8-1 lead on them and kind of just went from there.”

The Crimson dominated play from the get go, scoring four times in the first period while blanking Iona.

Blyashov netted the first goal of the game, and totalled 5 more across the four quarters.

Juniors Grayson Judge and Grant Harvey also scored once a piece in the first. Between the posts, junior Anthony Ridgley and sophomore Nikhil Suri split time and recorded 5 and 7 saves, respectively.

“It was awesome to win in the home pool,” Tafur said.

—Staff writer Ginny Miller can be reached at ginny.miller@thecrimson.com.