There is no shortage of painful memories from last season for Noah Welch to contemplate during his senior year. A pair of losses to Cornell. Another disappointing Beanpot. A two-period NCAA tournament masterpiece erased in just 20 minutes.

In short, plenty of fodder for a captain looking to prevent a repeat of yesteryear.

“It’s real easy this year considering how last season ended,” Welch says. “All the guys are kinda—it didn’t settle well how our seasons ended.”

But for Welch, the two-time All-ECAC defenseman, last year’s disappointment extends well beyond Harvard’s stunning collapse against then-No. 1 Maine.

Prior to the 2003-04 slate, Welch, in many ways, embodied the smothering hopes heaped on the Crimson’s collective shoulders. Highly touted in pre-season projections, both he and his teammates were expected to easily repeat and improve upon their performances from the season before. Not an altogether easy task considering Welch’s second-team All-American nod and Harvard’s at-large NCAA berth the season before.

“I think myself and the team put way too many expectations on ourselves last year, and that’s one thing I’m staying away from this year,” Welch says. “The pre-season All-American—stuff like that—that’s great, but I know that maybe that will happen if I just play my game and don’t worry about all that other hype.”

Because last year, well, the hype caught up with the Crimson—and Welch.

Between Dec. 6 and Feb. 13, Harvard won just four times in 15 games. After starting the season as nearly unanimous favorites to capture the ECAC crown and a series of false starts that refreshed hope of attaining that goal, the Crimson’s season was in undeniable freefall.

And Welch? Well, he fared little better.

“Noah took a very strong step forward from freshman to sophomore year and I think he will make a similar jump from sophomore to junior year,” former Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni had said prior to the season’s start. “He has the ability to control a game, and he needs to do that consistently now.”

Though not the most egregiously underperforming defenseman, Welch struggled to do just that, most notably during the Crimson’s mid-year swoon.

And when Harvard, its season hanging by a thread, fell behind Yale by four goals in a crucial February matchup, Welch’s year hit rock bottom.

“I think,” Welch said then, “I hit an all-time low in my hockey career in the first period.”

But though hopes for national accolades had faded, neither Welch nor Harvard was beyond resuscitation.

And as the Crimson drove towards its second ECAC postseason championship in three years, Welch’s game took care of itself. Scoring six points—one goal, five assists—in as many games, Welch had, like Harvard, arrived. At last.