Against a strong Princeton squad, the Crimson was unable to record any shots in the first half but had three in the second, with senior Katelin Wahl nearly scoring on one of her two shots.

On the day, Harvard had four shots to Princeton’s 31.

“We planned to do a half-field press to give them less space and to challenge them a little more,” said freshman Elizabeth Jacobson, who had one shot on the day. “In the first half, we had trouble with the attack, but in the second half we stepped up and started to pressure them a lot more.”

The Tigers also had 11 penalty corners on the day as opposed to the Crimson's one, and Harvard had 15 saves while freshman goalie Anya Gersoff had three for the home team.

Tradtionally one of the strongest teams in the conference, Princeton has won at least a share of the Ivy crown in each of the past seven seasons and has not fallen to the Crimson since 1993. The seven-goal deficit in the defeat is the most lopsided loss for Harvard since the Tigers' 9-0 victory against the Crimson in 2009.

But despite the scoreboard, the team believes it showed progress and fight against one of the nation's top squads.

“I’m very proud of the team of how we played,” Painter said. “[It’s disappointing] to lose 7-0; it’s not fun, but I think we did show them that you can’t push us around as much as they thought they probably could. At the end of the day we were able to walk off the field with our heads held high because we did compete with the best team in country.”

—Staff writer David Mazza can be reached at damazza@college.harvard.edu.