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Crimson Streaking After Slow Start to Season

After a slow start, the Harvard women’s soccer team is tearing through its remaining opponents.

The Crimson began its season with three losses in a row. The first came to the University of California at San Fransisco and the second to the University of San Fransisco. The Harvard women’s soccer team fell for a third consecutive time back on the East Coast against the University of New Hampshire with an ending score of 2-1.

“The results that we had didn’t really deter our motivation at all,” junior Marie Margolius said. “We felt like we were playing good soccer, and that was enough for us to not get discouraged.”

Margolius described the Crimson’s approach to the pre-season as a learning experience.

“We really just focused on getting to know each other,” she said. “We have a lot of new girls this year, so a lot of what we did was just learning how to play with each other and learning other people’s habits and strengths.”

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Junior midfielder Laura Aguilar commented on the fact that Ivy-League pre-seasons tend to start later than many of the other preseasons of schools outside of the conference.

“With the Ivy League rules, we have to start a little bit later than most of the teams that we play, so Cal, USF, UNH all had a few games under their belts before we played them,” Aguilar said.

The Harvard women knew what they had to do to squash what had become an unfavorable pattern.

“I think it was just us, working out the kinks, trying to figure out how to play well together,” Aguilar said. “That just takes time and comes with experience.”

The Crimson jumped at the chance to prove themselves at home against Providence College on September 13th. Fighting through a double-overtime to a tie of 1-1, Harvard broke its stream of losses.

“We were very hungry to win and be successful,” Aguilar said. “We’d been playing very well, and the scores of the first few games didn’t necessarily reflect how well we were playing.”

The squad was determined to show how good they were on the scoreboard.

“Once we were able to get our nerves out of the way and figure out how to play with each other we were able to get that competitive edge and get that fight,” Aguilar said.

Two days after, the Crimson hosted LIU Brooklyn and prevailed with a single goal. The final score read, 1-0.

“Honestly we just kept doing what we had been doing before,” Margolius said. “We have a really good team, a lot of talent, and a lot of heart, and I think our focus has always been just playing good soccer. Our attitudes have been the same the whole time.”

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