The Harvard men’s water polo team entered its match against then-No. 14 St. Francis with a 3-8 record, trying to get its season on the right track.

The Terriers had not lost a game at home since 2002 and had been one of the more dominant teams on the East Coast for years, but Harvard desperately needed a win to gain some momentum in late September.

The Crimson went down to St. Francis early in the contest, but came back with a strong 6-3 resurgence in the third quarter, eventually winning the contest, 14-11.

From there, the entire season changed.

“The big win at St. Francis was huge,” Harvard coach Ted Minnis said. “It would have been really easy for us to just be satisfied and say ‘that win defines our season,’ but we kept playing hard and kept playing against good teams and still [got] good results.”

The Crimson went on a seven-game winning streak—all against conference opponents—to improve to 10-8 on the season and 8-1 in CWPA Northern division competition.

Eventually, Harvard would go on a second seven-game streak in late October, which included another defeat of St. Francis, improving to 11-1 in conference play.

With its late-season surge, Harvard seized the regular season conference title and finished its 2013 campaign with an overall record of 18-14 and an home record of 7-1 at Blodgett.

“We achieved almost all of our goals,” Minnis said. “I was very proud of the way that we played this year…. We love playing here [at home], and we love the crowds that we get. We always want to make sure we are playing our best here.”

The Crimson eventually fell to St. Francis in the conference tournament—its only loss at home—but its second-place finish in the league was the highest spot that the team has claimed since 2004.

After having not made the national rankings since 2002, the team finished its season ranked 17th in the country, maintaining its spot in the national polls for a team-record eight straight weeks.

Having springboarded the program to its current success, Minnis garnered CWPA Coach of the Year recognition. Before this campaign, Harvard had not had a winning record since 2004, illustrating the magnitude of the team’s turnaround.

“This year was a major improvement from last season,” sophomore goaltender Colin Woolway said. “We made a major step up from a team with a lot of potential to a team that is truly competing with the best teams on the East Coast.”

Making its accomplishments all the more notable is the fact that the Crimson team is remarkably young.

Its seniors, though integral to the team’s chemistry and overall performance, were not the main contributors to the team’s efforts in the pool.