Women's Soccer in Reach of Title

A 0-3-1 start does not usually describe a soccer squad poised to make a title run. Yet that was where the Harvard women’s team stood a week into the season.

The Crimson players could have begun to doubt themselves. After all, the last Harvard team to go winless in its first four contests finished the year with a dismal 3-13-1 record and dwelt near the Ivy League cellar.

But coach Ray Leone had faith in his talneted team when others may have not.

“I thought there was a lot of potential with this group,” Leone said. “And as long as we weren’t concerned with the results [early on], I knew we were going to be fine…. We learned a lot by making mistakes and losing those early games.”

Taking the silver lining from the inauspicious start, neither captain Peyton Johnson nor freshman forward Midge Purce thought to question the team or the coaching staff.

“It was a blessing in disguise,” Johnson said. “We were upset about the results, but at the same time, there was so much belief within the team and from the coaches that we were a good team…. We never let down and [the losses] only drove us to train harder and come out stronger.”

“We played some really good teams in the beginning, but never were our heads down,” Purce added. “The more you play with someone…the better you are as a team.”

As confident as Leone, Johnson, and Purce may have been at the time, it’s hard to believe that they ever envisioned the story that unfolded. Even after earning its first victory of the year—a 1-0 win over LIU Brooklyn—the Crimson didn’t look like a team about to pull off one of the longest streaks in program history.

But eleven games later, Purce was leading the Ivy League with 16 goals and 26 points and had an Ivy League Player of the Week award under her belt, the first Harvard freshman to earn the honor since 1991.

Eleven games later, the Crimson still had not lost since the opening week and had only given up seven goals during the streak.

And eleven games later, Harvard would be celebrating its 11th Ivy League title.

“I don’t think I can [describe it],” Purce said. “ I think the best thing is that we worked hard for it in practice and on and off the field.”

The Crimson captain had a hard time processing the team’s sudden success.

“[If someone had told me where we would be at the end of the season,] oh gosh…I wouldn’t have believed [it],” Johnson laughed. “At the start of every season you know that so many things could go so many ways…. It would not have been on my list of first five guesses.”

At the end of a rough first week, an Ivy League title probably wasn’t on anyone’s list of possible outcomes. But the group was ready to take on the challenge head-on without worrying about the past.

“What’s remarkable about the 11 [games] is that in everyone’s mind we were able to make it eleven one-game stretches,” Johnson said. “After we’d win or tie, we wouldn’t dwell on it very long…. The reason we could have a streak like the one we had was because we didn’t treat it like one.”

Though the outcome was different, the input had been the same throughout the season.

“We faced some tough opponents [early on], but each game we learned something about ourselves as a team and about the teams we’d be facing in the future,” junior goaltender Cheta Emba said. “Once we started winning, I guess that was the turnaround. But it’s been a journey from the beginning.”

With victory after victory, the Crimson maintained its focus and did not get caught up in its own success. But the post-championship celebration huddle gave Harvard players a chance to step back and admire how far they’d come.

“For the first time this season, [Coach Leone] let us reflect for a second,” Johnson said. “Once we had that trophy in our hands, he let us think about how awesome those last six games in the Ivy League had been…and he let us be proud of that.”

But midway through his talk, Leone brought the group back to the present, looking ahead towards its final Ivy match at Columbia this weekend. There the Crimson will be shooting for its first perfect league record since 1999, the year it had its last 13 game unbeaten streak, as well.

“[Going undefeated] is really a dream, not so much a goal,” Leone said. “The goal is to win the Ivy League, and if you can pull off a 7-0 [league record], then that’s impressive, and we have a tough team to play to see if we can do it.”