The 1-0 loss against Princeton followed, but with a 2-1 win over Dartmouth on Halloween, the Crimson earned at least a share of the Ivy League title. One week later, after a 2-1 overtime win against Columbia, Harvard took sole possession of the crown. The excitement couldn’t last long, though, as six days later the Crimson faced its first opponent in NCAA tournament play— Boston College.

“We went into it with the mentality that we most definitely could beat them,” senior goalkeeper Lauren Mann said. “They were playing well, we were playing well. It was an unfortunate way to end. They scored in the first couple minutes of the second half, but we kept fighting up until the end.”

Harvard fell in the first round of playoffs to its crosstown rival, 1-0.

“I’m very proud that we did not stop fighting to turn that game around, never stopped until the whistle was blown,” Nichols said. “It’s always sort of disappointing ending the season on a loss, but I think anyone walking away from that game can say that they were proud of the way we had developed our team.”

For seniors Nichols, Mann, Christina Hagner, and Kelli Okuji, who in their first year as Crimson athletes won a total of three games, this season was still a winning one.

“It was something we joked about, but we never doubted that we were going to win an Ivy League championship,” Nichols said. “Every year we got closer and closer.”

And now they have two.

—Staff writer Alex Sopko can be reached at sopko@fas.harvard.edu.