{shortcode-f5a87a0663de5286ee00d7575f7e22622a840d3f}

In its first pair of road clashes, the Harvard men’s soccer team traveled to the Bay Area to face off against perennial powerhouses No. 25 Stanford and California, returning home with a pair of defeats at the hands of the Pac-12 schools.

After opening with a 3-1 loss to the defending national champion Cardinal (3-1-3) on Friday, the Crimson (2-3-1) was unable to respond against the Golden Bears (3-2-1), falling to a 6-2 loss. Though the results were not the ones the team was looking for, the experience gained from this weekend could prove to be a pivotal turning point going into Ivy play.

“I think two months from now...we’re going to look back at this week pretty fondly,” senior defender Dan Smith said. “The strength of our team is we have these games and these weekends and we bounce back and get better for it... this will be the point where we got better.”

CALIFORNIA 6, HARVARD 2

Five goals from Cal senior forward Christian Thierjung doomed Harvard to a 6-2 loss in the latter game of its California road trip, as Thierjung managed to get off eight shots on goal, the same as the entire Crimson squad.

After Cal’s attack failed to break through for the first 25 minutes, Thierjung opened the scoring after beating the offside trap and poking the ball past Harvard junior keeper Kyle Parks before sophomore forward Spencer Held doubled the advantage just ten minutes later.

In the second half, it was the Thierjung show, as the forward demonstrated his instinct for goal by finding the back of the net four times in the span of 26 minutes to secure the 6-2 scoreline. Despite the final score, it wasn’t all bad news for the Crimson.

Harvard sophomore forward Cesar Farias tallied his first career goal in the 50th minute to cut the deficit to 3-1 while freshman forward Philip Hausen set up classmate Matthew Glass for the second Crimson goal.

The team fired 16 shots at the Cal goal, eight of them on target, while Parks made a season-high six saves.

Though the Harvard defense was challenged constantly throughout the road trip, co-captain Andrew Wheeler-Omiunu emphasized the team will continue to stick to its defensive approach and adjust accordingly for each opponent.

“Every team presents a new challenge that you have to prepare for,” Wheeler-Omiunu said. “In terms of tightening up, we’ll stay in our defensive principles… outside of that it will be depending on the scout.”

STANFORD 3, HARVARD 1

The first nine minutes of the game was all Stanford needed as the Cardinal scored three goals in that span en route to a 3-1 victory over Harvard.

While the Crimson contained the Stanford offense for the remainder of the game, it was unable to find the goals it needed to get back in the game,getting off only three shots on goal.