Sophomore Erin Wylie streaks past defenders in Sunday’s 0-0 tie with St. Mary’s. The Crimson travels to Boston University today to take on the No. 24 Terriers. Harvard will look to gain its first win of the season before taking on Penn to begin its Ivy Le

After a difficult non-conference schedule, the Harvard women’s soccer team is itching to begin Ivy League action.

This afternoon’s matchup with an accomplished cross-town rival will likely make the team even more eager to finish its non-conference season.

The Crimson, in search of its first victory of the season, will find the going tough today at No. 24 Boston University (BU) (5-2-0).

Coming off a 1-0 victory over No. 3 Santa Clara last week at the Stanford Invitational, the Terriers have confidence that they can handle a Harvard squad that lost its matchup against the Broncos 3-0 in the opening game of the season.

However, this match provides an opportunity for the Harvard squad to see its progression from that first weekend.

Success against BU would fill the Crimson (0-5-1) with more confidence as its Ivy League season begins Sunday at Penn. If the team can achieve a good result, it would continue on its rising learning curve climbing following its first tie of the season last weekend against St. Mary’s.

What’s more, it would put them on level footing with Brown (4-1-2, 0-0-0 Ivy), the second-place team in the Ivies, who tied BU 0-0 early in the season.

“I know the [Ivy] conference is tough and the field is level,” Walsh said. “The details are going to make the difference.”

If there was ever a time for a young Harvard team to work out any last pre-Ivy kinks, today’s game against a top twenty-five team would be it. Penn (4-0-1, 0-0-0 Ivy), the top team in the Ivy League with an unblemished non-conference slate, awaits the Crimson for Sunday’s game in Philadelphia.

This weekend’s match-up will answer a lot of questions about how prepared the Crimson is to make a run at the league title.

First-year players will play a big part in answering those questions. With twelve freshmen on Harvard’s twenty-one-player roster, the team will have to grow up quickly if it wants to turn its early challenges into league success.

“We’ve played these great teams and their athleticism made us step up,” said freshman forward Christina Hagner, who has started all six of the Crimson’s games and enters today’s contest with a goal and an assist on the season. “We know that we can match their level of play, we just haven’t gotten the results that we’ve wanted.”

“I’m confident despite our record,” added freshman defenseman Lizzy Nichols, who leads the team with four points on a goal and two assists. “We’ve played all these great teams at a high level, and in every game, we’ve matched their level.”

Harvard will be without Nichols’s services today at BU and Sunday at Penn, as she suffered a second-degree concussion and three facial fractures during last Sunday’s scoreless tie with St. Mary’s.

The Crimson is not alone in facing a strenuous schedule to begin its season, as other teams, such as Ivy-rival Yale (2-3-1, 0-0-0 Ivy) were pitted against perennial powerhouses like North Carolina.

The Bulldogs not only lost to the Tar Heels 3-0, but also appeared at number three on ESPN’s infamous Sportscenter Top-10 list for allowing North Carolina to score within the first three seconds of the game, the fastest goal in NCAA women’s soccer history.

“A lot of the other Ivy teams are in the same boat as us, playing really hard teams to start the season,” senior captain Laura Odorczyk said. “They’re getting the same results we are.”

But the team will have to muster a better effort than it put forth against lowly St. Mary’s on Sunday to have this success, and the squad knows that the league season will be an uphill climb to the top.

“If we’re playing the way we played against Santa Clara and Penn State, we’re going to find success in the Ivies,” Walsh said. “But at 0-5-1, it’s tough to say that.”

­—Staff writer Emily W. Cunningham can be reached at cunning@fas.harvard.edu.