Perform A Two Column Lookup That Returns A Value From Another Column?

I have a table with 3 columns. See below for data (ignore dashes):

COLUMN X-----COLUMN Y-----COLUMN Z
Project 1---------21 Dec 09---------$70
Project 2---------21 Dec 09---------$85
Project 3---------21 Dec 09---------$90
Project 1---------1 Jan 10-----------$85
Project 2---------1 Jan 10-----------$95
Project 3---------1 Jan 10-----------$110

As you can see, COLUMN X contains Project Names, COLUMN Y contains Dates and COLUMN Z contains Monetary Value.

Here is what I need to do: I need a formula/function that will lookup "Project 1" in COLUMN X and find the latest corresponding Date in COLUMN Y (for this example, 1 Jan 10) for Project 1 and then display the corresponding Monetary Value from COLUMN Z (for this example, $85).

I have tried using VLOOKUP, but since the data must be sorted it won't work. I tried using INDEX(MATCH), but can't get it to work. My goal is that the cell will be dynamically updated every time a user inputs updated data for a certain project based on the latest date.