HANOVER – Spring weekends in Hanover mean an influx of late-model luxury vehicles rolling into the Scully-Fahey Field parking lot, their occupants headed to watch the Dartmouth College men’s lacrosse team tilt at the collective windmill of Ivy League opposition.

A Range Rover from Connecticut. A BMW from New Jersey. A Bentley from New York. Don’t bring your jalopy to town if you have qualms about automotive status.

Big Green fans at Saturday’s tilt with Princeton received their money’s worth, if not a victory. The No. 4 Tigers prevailed, 11-8, scoring their last two goals into an unguarded net when the No. 18 Big Green elected to push senior netminder Mason Morel out as an extra defender.

Princeton is 6-2 overall and 2-1 in Ivy play, while Dartmouth is 7-2 and 1-1.

For a perpetually rebuilding Dartmouth program, the result was — on paper, at least — a moral victory. The Big Green has won just 12 league games during the last 19 years, including last week’s overtime triumph at Penn, and is in the top 20 rankings for the first time since 2007.

Thomas Power’s deeply pained expression, however, spoke otherwise. The junior transfer from Colorado College was one of three Dartmouth players to score two goals, but he said coming so close to a significant upset was agonizing.

“We’re a little frustrated, because we felt we could have done better,” Power said. “Losses can be good, in a way, because they’re humbling.”

Said second-year coach Sean Kirwan: “I think it’s a reminder that we play in a tough league and we have to battle for the entirety of the game, which I don’t think we did.”

Dartmouth allowed Princeton to take an eye-popping 60 shots to the Big Green’s 34. The Tigers put 32 of those on net, forcing Morel to tie his career high with 21 saves.

“For my money, Mason’s the best goalie in our league,” said Kirwan, whose team committed 18 turnovers. “He’s battle-tested and a great leader, and he bails out our defense a ton. They play with such confidence knowing Mason’s behind them.”

Dartmouth had five failed clears to the visitors’ one and came up with a dozen fewer ground balls.

“That’s unacceptable,” said Powers, a honorable mention Division III All-American at Colorado College whom Kirwan discovered in the transfer portal last year.

“Maybe we lost a little grit, and we’ve got to find it in practice this week.”

Dartmouth led, 4-1, early in the second quarter before trailing, 6-5, at halftime. The Big Green was shut out during the third quarter while Princeton pocketed two more goals.

The hosts scored to pull within, 9-8, with two minutes remaining but lost the subsequent faceoff, leading to Kirwan’s gamble to move Morel out of the cage.

“It’s a matter of how many possessions are probably left in the game and what the score is,” Kirwan said. “How your defense is playing? If we don’t do it, we only give our offense 20 or 25 seconds to generate an opportunity after (Princeton’s) shot clock expires.

“I think we did it appropriately, but you have to make plays.”

Dartmouth’s Alex Jessey nearly pulled his team within a goal with 50 seconds to go, leaping for a one-handed interception of a pass from Princeton goalie Ryan Croddick.

Face-to-face with the Princeton backstop, Jessey threw two fakes at him before shooting but was denied on the turf.

The crowd gasped and then groaned, but Kirwan said he didn’t assume the prime chance would be rewarded.

“I’ve been coaching long enough to know to not mentally cash in anything,” Kirwan said. “You’ve got to make sure the ball hits the white net.”

Dartmouth has never made the four-team Ivy League tournament since its 2011 founding. Only seven of the Ancient Eight schools play the sport, Columbia being the outlier. Traditionally, a squad needs three victories to reach the event, this year hosted by whichever school wins the regular-season title.

The Big Green hosts No. 13 Harvard (7-2) next week, followed by a trip to Yale (2-5), the home finale against Brown (3-6) and the regular-season capper at No. 1 Cornell (7-1). This season has been uncharacteristically down for the Ivy League, which generally has four, five or even six teams in the top-20 rankings.

Tris Wykes can be reached at ctwykes@aol.com.