Crimson Streaking After Slow Start to Season

After a slow start, the Harvard women’s soccer team is tearing through its remaining opponents.

The Crimson began its season with three losses in a row. The first came to the University of California at San Fransisco and the second to the University of San Fransisco. The Harvard women’s soccer team fell for a third consecutive time back on the East Coast against the University of New Hampshire with an ending score of 2-1.

“The results that we had didn’t really deter our motivation at all,” junior Marie Margolius said. “We felt like we were playing good soccer, and that was enough for us to not get discouraged.”

Margolius described the Crimson’s approach to the pre-season as a learning experience.

“We really just focused on getting to know each other,” she said. “We have a lot of new girls this year, so a lot of what we did was just learning how to play with each other and learning other people’s habits and strengths.”

Junior midfielder Laura Aguilar commented on the fact that Ivy-League pre-seasons tend to start later than many of the other preseasons of schools outside of the conference.

“With the Ivy League rules, we have to start a little bit later than most of the teams that we play, so Cal, USF, UNH all had a few games under their belts before we played them,” Aguilar said.

The Harvard women knew what they had to do to squash what had become an unfavorable pattern.

“I think it was just us, working out the kinks, trying to figure out how to play well together,” Aguilar said. “That just takes time and comes with experience.”

The Crimson jumped at the chance to prove themselves at home against Providence College on September 13th. Fighting through a double-overtime to a tie of 1-1, Harvard broke its stream of losses.

“We were very hungry to win and be successful,” Aguilar said. “We’d been playing very well, and the scores of the first few games didn’t necessarily reflect how well we were playing.”

The squad was determined to show how good they were on the scoreboard.

“Once we were able to get our nerves out of the way and figure out how to play with each other we were able to get that competitive edge and get that fight,” Aguilar said.

Two days after, the Crimson hosted LIU Brooklyn and prevailed with a single goal. The final score read, 1-0.

“Honestly we just kept doing what we had been doing before,” Margolius said. “We have a really good team, a lot of talent, and a lot of heart, and I think our focus has always been just playing good soccer. Our attitudes have been the same the whole time.”

Improving once again, the team shutout the University of Rhode Island, 2-0, at home. Just two days later, the Crimson triumphed over UMass Lowell with a score of 5-0.

“UMass Lowell was a whole team effort,” Aguilar said. “A bunch of different people scored, a bunch of different people assisted, and we were just able to put the pieces together and have fun.”

The team recorded its first Ivy League victory on September 27 when it hosted Penn.

“We came out very excited to play Penn and ready for the challenge,” Aguilar said. “We were just ready to go, so to get a win was very exciting.”

Since then, the Harvard team has remained strong, beating Central Connecticut State 2-0, Yale 3-1, and playing Boston University to a tie of 1-1.

Margolius attributes these successes to strong team performances in practices.

“We’re just training good habits in practice, and I think it really carries over into the game,” she said.

Most recently, the Crimson beat Cornell 7-2. And while the conference wins are important to the team, non-conference games carry weight as well.

“We treat every Ivy League game as a championship game,” Aguilar said.

This week, the team gets ready to play the Bears at Ohiri Field.

“Each Ivy League game is a new and different game, so we have to put our whims behind us and move on to the next challenge,” Aguilar said.  “Improving our speed of play and possession of the ball—those are the things we’re focusing on.”

Margolius stated that the Crimson is not focusing as much on finding ways to combat Brown’s specific tactics.

“There’s no commentary between us about what they are doing,” Margolius said. “We’re just focusing on ourselves.”

The Harvard women’s soccer team will battle it out against Brown on Saturday at 4pm at Soldier’s Field.