“They’ve won a lot of Ivy titles recently,” Wiggin said. “They are the team to beat. These games are always competitive and you have to take statistics with a grain of salt going into them. In rivalry battles, all that stuff goes down the tube.”

Just this past week, the Bears lost to Princeton, knocking it out of the national rankings. Three days later, Brown barely edged a winless Providence team, 3-2.

But the Crimson players said that despite Brown’s mediocre play of late and their weakness in offensive categories—the Browns are ranked fourth in goals scored per game and sixth in shots in the Ivies—the Crimson defense will have to play one of its best games of the season.

“They are really dangerous on set plays,” Craig said. “They play a great ball in from the middle. Against Princeton, they had a couple of great set plays that they just went out and executed.”

“Historically they’ve been very good at corner kicks and free kicks,” Kerr said.

Kerr’s words could not ring truer looking back on past Harvard-Brown games.

In 2002, the Bears beat the Crimson on a last minute goal off a set play.

And just the year before, Brown’s defeat of Harvard at the end of the season gave it a share of the Ivy League title with Princeton over the third-place Crimson.

“With the rivalry between the two teams, it’s real easy to get motivated,” Craig said. “We just have to be careful to not get too pumped up or we won’t be able to relax and play our game.”

Harvard has until 3 p.m. on Sunday to calm down when it kicks off on Stevenson field in Providence.

—Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.