The men’s soccer team advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament with a 3-0 victory over Monmouth. Co-captain Andre Akpan, classmate Adam Rousmaniere, and freshman Richard Smith scored in the victory. Akpan’s goal tied him with Chris Ohiri ‘64 for the school record.

There were times when Ivy League men’s soccer seemed like anyone’s game. Harvard was hardly the only team with talent, and an Ivy title was never a sure thing.

But the Crimson knew its potential from day one and never lost sight of its objective.

“We set our goals at the beginning of the season,” senior Desmond Mitchell said. “One of our goals was to win the Ivy title. We constantly reminded ourselves of these goals. We had the team, we had the players.”

And in the end, Harvard had the result, securing sole possession of the championship with a 1-0 victory over Penn before advancing to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament for what was the team’s best finish in 22 years.

While the Crimson was never short on star power—co-captain forward Andre Akpan was first runner-up for the Hermann Trophy—its success hinged more on the leadership of the senior class as a whole and the team’s tight-knit atmosphere than it did on any one player.

“As a team we had a very tight bunch,” rising co-captain Jaren LaGreca said. “Everyone was doing the work for each other.”

“It’s more than just a team,” Mitchell added. “It’s become a family.”

The team’s five seniors, Akpan, defender Kwaku Nyamekye, and midfielders Mitchell, co-captain Brian Grimm, and Adam Rousmaniere, kept the team on track all year long. Having come to Cambridge on the heels of a 6-8-2 season, Harvard’s seniors never once failed to reach the NCAA tournament during their careers. When the team started to fall off track, with a 4-0 loss to then-No. 17 UConn and a 2-1 upset by unranked Princeton, it was the seniors who set the team straight.

“I give a lot of credit to the seniors for not letting us hang our heads or get too down on ourselves,” freshman Brian Rogers said. “They’re going to be really sorely missed. They were all starters, all impact players.”

After two seniors, Akpan and Nyamekye, led the Crimson to a season-changing victory over Dartmouth, the team’s younger three classes took Harvard the rest of the way to a league title, with Rogers, classmate Richard Smith, and junior Alex Chi scoring key goals in the Crimson’s final two conference games.

Arguably Harvard’s best game of the season was its last victory of the year when it defeated Monmouth, 3-0, in the second round of NCAAs. For the Crimson’s seniors, the remarkable run ended in the next round at the hands of defending champion Maryland. But while the seniors’ college playing days are over, their impact on the program is not, as the class raised the bar for Harvard soccer.

“We did really well—that’s something that we’d like to continue,” LaGreca said. “That’s where we hold our standards.”

—Staff writer Christina C. McClintock can be reached at ccmcclin@fas.harvard.edu.