The defense, led by Old and sophomore goalkeeper Ryan Johnson, has been consistently stingy. Outside of last week’s 3-0 loss to Brown—in which two of the goals were scored off of penalties and the third came off of a deflection—the Harvard defense has not surrendered more than one goal in over a month. On Sept. 20 the defense let up four in a loss to Hartford.

It is the offense—largely considered one of the team’s strengths in the offseason—which has failed to convert.

Harvard is leading the Ivy League in shots, but has failed to finish on goals in big games. It has only one multiple-goal game since a Sept. 26 3-2 win over Duke.

“We’ve been creating chances,” Napper said Wednesday. “It’s just a matter of the shots going in.”

The team has also been plagued by old-fashioned bad luck. In a 1-0 loss to Yale, the deciding goal came on a penalty kick after a Harvard handball in the box.

The loss was followed by a disappointing tie against Cornell a week later, as the Big Red scored their only goal on a Pape Seye shot from 30 yards out.

“[We weren’t] getting much luck from the soccer gods,” Napper said.

Old agreed.

“I think we’ve been unlucky so far,” he said. “But you can’t just blame 2 losses and a tie on luck. We want to prove that we are a good team. [Our 0-2-1 Ivy record] is not acceptable for our standards.”

Fatefully, the Crimson will have a chance to improve that mark against one of its fiercest rivals.

And while Napper may deny the team’s enmity towards Princeton, he can’t deny the importance of Saturday’s game.

“We’ve got a lot to prove,” he said.