Senior attacker Krista Pellizzi and her teammates on the Terrapin women’s lacrosse team would not be denied on Senior Night.

Pellizzi scored her sixth goal of the game with four seconds remaining in the sudden-death third overtime as the No. 5-ranked Terps beat No. 11 Princeton (13-12) in a physical, hard-fought and thrilling game to close out the Terps’ regular season.

“Being that it was Senior Night just made it extra amazing,” Pellizzi said. “I’m kind of speechless.”

After the Tigers held the ball for most of the two non-sudden-death overtime periods and for a good portion of the first sudden-death period, junior defender Katie Pumphrey caused a critical turnover to give the Terps possession. After the ball was brought into the Terps’ offensive zone, Pellizzi got the ball and held it behind the net, then came out at the last possible minute to score on a bounce shot from the left side of the net.

The Terps sprinted to swarm Pellizzi as screams of jubilation erupted from the stands at Ludwig Field.

“I think Katie Pumphrey won the game,” Pellizzi said. “If she didn’t check that ball we would have never gotten it down on offense so I give her all the credit.”

The win gives the Terps, who had lost two of their previous three games after winning 13 of their first 14, some much-needed momentum going into the NCAA tournament that is scheduled to begin May 13.

“We have it written on our shoes, ‘Philly,’ because that’s where the National Championship game is,” senior defender Becky Clipp said. “If we get tired and we look down, it kind of keeps us going.”

After a first half marked by strong defense and physical play, the teams went into halftime tied 5-5. Clipp drew a ferocious charge, and Pellizzi had to leave the game momentarily with a bloody lip.

“It was a good play because we were kind of jittery, and it kind of grounded us a little bit,” Clipp said about her charge. “They were coming down on a fast break, we took that charge and it kind of got our momentum going a little bit.”

In the second half, the two offenses came to life, and when junior midfielder Dana Dobbie plowed through three defenders to score one of her three goals, and Pellizzi scored nearly 45 seconds later, the Terps led 9-8 with 19:50 remaining in regulation.

The Tigers responded with three unanswered goals of their own to take an 11-9 lead with 11:08 remaining, but when freshman midfielder Caitlyn McFadden scored to tie the game at 11-11 with 4:42 left in regulation, the crowd erupted, and it was a sign of things to come.

“We just wanted this game so badly,” McFadden said. “Since it was our senior game and our last game of the season going into the playoffs, we wanted to get back in the game so badly. [The goal] was huge to get our momentum back.”

Pellizzi scored what would have been the game-winning goal in regulation when she scored off of a free position with 3:27 left, but Princeton’s Kathleen Miller scored her fifth goal of the night with just 55 seconds remaining to force overtime and the ensuing dramatics.

The Terps played a similar overtime game against Princeton in 2005, when nearly two years ago to the day the Terps beat the Tigers by the same score as last night, 13-12, in quadruple overtime.

The win all but assures the Terps at least one home game in the NCAA tournament and helps them avoid their first back-to-back losses of the season.

“We showed a lot of character in this game,” Clipp said. “We got down in this game and we fought our way back. It just shows that we can get through anything.”

Contact reporter Greg Schimmel at schimmeldbk@gmail.com.