Men’s soccer pulled out a key win at Columbia last week and now controls its own fate in the race for an Ivy championship. Co-captain Brian Grimm will look to lead the Crimson to its second title in four years.

Last November, the Harvard men’s soccer team gazed across the field in disappointment as Penn celebrated a conference crown. Tomorrow afternoon, the Crimson will take the field in its season finale with the opportunity to clinch its thirteenth Ivy title and the chance to earn retribution against the team that shattered its title hopes last year.

“We have been waiting all year to play them,” junior forward Alex Chi said. “It’s a really big game for us.”

Last season in Philadelphia, Penn stole the Ancient Eight title and the accompanying automatic NCAA tournament bid from Harvard’s grasp when the ball trickled into the net past then-freshman goalkeeper Austin Harms in the fifth minute of overtime.

“It was rough seeing them celebrate,” Chi said. “It made our team want it even more.”

But this year has offered a fresh start.

“It’s a different team, different makeup, different mindset, but the same goals,” Crimson coach Jamie Clark said.

This time at home on Ohiri Field, No. 11 Harvard (12-3-1, 4-1-1 Ivy), the only nationally ranked Ivy team, will play Penn (6-7-3, 2-3-1), again with the title at stake. The Crimson controls its own destiny with a single point lead atop the standings on both Brown and Dartmouth, who play each other this week. As long as the Bears and Big Green do not tie, Harvard must defeat the Quakers on Saturday to clinch the conference.

Even though the Crimson has almost certainly assured itself a spot in the NCAA tournament with its season thus far, the team still wants to call itself league champion.

“It’s really important [to win the conference] because we were so close last year,” Chi said. “Winning the Ivy League will give us a much higher seed in the tournament.”

Thanks in part to Chi’s play last week, Harvard has the opportunity to control its own destiny and move up the NCAA tournament bracket. Against Columbia, it looked like the title chance was about to slip through the team’s fingertips with Harvard down a goal late in the second half. But freshman forward Brian Rogers brought the Crimson back and sent the game into an extra period with a goal in the 79th minute. In overtime, the momentum stayed on Harvard’s side, and with fewer than five minutes into the period, Chi scored to keep the Crimson’s championship hopes alive.

“It would have been a major disappointment and put a lot more pressure on us if we didn’t win last week,” Clark said. “It can be good to go through some adversity and fight from behind.”

Coming off last week’s victory, Harvard is looking for its first title since 2006. On Senior Day, the seniors will look to end their collegiate careers the same way they began them.

“That would be pretty special for us seniors,” co-captain Brain Grimm said. “It would be really nice to go out on top.”

While the seniors look to earn their second title, their coach is eyeing his first. In two seasons, Clark is poised to find himself at 10 conference victories in his first stint as a head coach.

“You want to get in the habit of winning things,” Clark said. “If we start getting in the habit of winning Ivy titles, that’s a good thing…but we have to win the first one to begin the habit.”