Throughout his soccer career, Pieter Lehrer has done nothing but win.

Over the course of his 14-year coaching tenure with teams like Stanford, Cal, and the Los Angeles Galaxy, Lehrer has won three Pac-12 championships, an MLS Cup, and an Open Cup. In addition, he has made five appearances in the NCAA Tournament and three in the NCAA College Cup.

Therefore, when Lehrer took the job as the head coach of the Harvard men’s soccer team last spring, he was entering uncharted territory. After posting back-to-back 0-6-1 records in the Ivy League in 2011 and 2012, Lehrer’s newly inherited Crimson had hit rock bottom.

“People were pretty frustrated,” senior co-captain Kevin Harrington said. “After three straight years of disappointment, it just gets tougher and tougher each year to pick yourself back up and put yourself on the right track.”

Lehrer immediately got to work. Just days after receiving the job, the coach packed his bags for Cambridge to begin overseeing Harvard’s offseason workouts. After the team surrendered 30 goals during the 2012 campaign, Lehrer made the defense his primary focus.

“Coming out of [last] season, things were very negative,” Harrington said. “The way that Coach Lehrer came in with a lot of energy and this absurd optimism really invigorated the program and got people hopeful again.”

Implementing his defense-first system proved to be a challenge as Harvard got off to yet another poor start, opening the season 1-6-2, but Lehrer still continued to show what one of his captains called “his undying commitment” to the team.

“I put everything I have into it, and I expect [the players] to put everything they have into it,” Lehrer said. “If [you] don’t want to put everything in, you’re in the wrong place. You should just be a regular student at Harvard.”

The players answered his call. Beginning with an upset win on the road against defending champion Cornell, the Crimson earned victories in six of their last eight games, missing out on the Ancient Eight title by just half a game. The team’s 5-2-0 Ivy League record was its best since 2009, the last time the Crimson won the crown.

This unforeseen success can largely be accredited to Lehrer’s affinity for analytics. The coach spent hours analyzing film and statistics trying to help his team gain a tactical advantage over the competition. As a result, Lehrer got what he was looking for in one area in particular—set pieces.

“I thought the difference maker this year was our set pieces,” senior co-captain Ross Friedman said. “We were constantly talking about the process of set pieces.”

Prior to the season, Lehrer found a study showing that corner kicks have a higher rate of success in producing goals when they are kept low. Friedman, Harvard’s primary taker of corners and free kicks, bought in to the advice and saw immediate results.

Sixty percent of Harvard’s goals this season came off set pieces, half of which came off corner kicks. In perspective, the Crimson scored more goals off set pieces (12) and corners (six) this year than in the last three seasons combined.

Furthermore, Harvard converted over six percent of their corner kicks into points this year. From 2010-2012, the team found the back of the net on less than two percent of these corners. Therefore, Lehrer’s excessive work helped stimulate over a tripling in scoring production.

“It’s really inspiring to see a coach who’s willing to just lay it all on the line and do anything to win,” Harrington said.