Men's Soccer Looks to Pick Up First Ivy Win

­With the second half of the season well underway, and an Ivy League title still up for grabs, it’s go time for the Harvard men’s soccer team (4-3-2, 0-0-1 Ivy League).

After a particularly difficult stretch, including games against Pac-12 teams and a gritty Ivy League opener against Yale last weekend, the Crimson will be looking to get back into the win column on Saturday when Cornell (0-8-2, 0-1-0) comes to town for the final game of a three-game home stretch for Harvard.

“We were happy with the way we performed in the second half last week,” senior striker Jake Freeman said. “At the same time we thought we came out very slow, so it wasn’t exactly the result we wanted. We understand we’re still in a great spot as a team, and we’ve taken this week to just prepare and improve on the things we needed to, to get ready for Saturday.”

Both teams will be entering Saturday’s match coming off of tight matches, with the Crimson registering a tie to push its unbeaten streak to three games.

Meanwhile, the Big Red fell to Penn last Saturday to extend its losing streak to five games. Not only will both teams be looking for their first Ivy League wins, they will also look to do so in regular time.

Cornell has played five games into overtime so far while Harvard has seen two go into double-overtime and a handful of others decided in the final minutes. Saturday will provide both teams with another opportunity to decide the game in 90 minutes.

“We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing, and make little adjustments,” senior central defender Daniel Smith said. “There’s just a couple little things that we needed to clean up and we’ll be fine.”

Harvard will see familiar faces on Cornell’s senior-heavy team, as several of the team’s playmakers returned from last year, including Brady Dickens, George Pedlow, and Madison Heck. With so many key players to track, it would appear to be a difficult task to make sure each player is shut down—but not for Harvard.

“We’ll go through a team scout of what Cornell does and what makes them a decent team,” Freeman said. “We really want to focus on ourselves, and think about what we can do as a team to put us in the best position to win the game, whether that’s defending as a team… or keeping our composure in the offensive third. We know if we take care of our own business, the rest of it will take care of itself.”

Staying true to form, Harvard will stick to shutting down the Cornell team in all facets, instead of focusing on a few players. This strategy is imperative against the Big Red—six different players have accounted for the team’s eight goals.

In its last game, Cornell posted a season-high 20 shots.

To offset Cornell’s offense, the Crimson will be relying on both its offense and defense. The back line has thus far been effective in breaking up opponents’ plays, and goalkeeper Kyle Parks has accrued a 1.69 goals-against average after 41 saves in the past nine games. The junior has also two shutouts on the season.

Offensively, Harvard will defer to its own group of leaders—co-captain Andrew Wheeler-Omiunu, Freeman, juniors Christian Sady and Justin Crichlow, and two-time Ivy League Rookie of the Week Matthew Glass. Freeman and Glass currently lead the Crimson in points, with 11 and 10, respectively, which also puts them in the second and third places of the Ivy League scoring standings.

Currently, Harvard leads the all-time series against Cornell, 40-22-15, and has not lost a game against the Big Red since 2012.

The Crimson will do everything it can to preserve that win streak and continue to gain momentum for the balance of the season.

“We are not focusing on the win or the record, or how the league is shaping up,” Smith said. “We just want to focus on how we’re playing, and doing everything that we can do. If we focus on us, and we execute to the best of our ability, then things will shape out for us.”

Staff writer Katherine Scott can be reached at katherine.scott@thecrimson.com.