[2] Aside from the prospect potential, Harvard's recent trip to the NCAA tournament and the return of most of its key players put tremendous expectations on the program.

The offense, led by Olympian Sean Farrell, was firing on all cylinders while the defensive effort was being spearheaded by All-American Henry Thrun.

The team ran into a bit of a speed bump on its first real road trip, dropping a weekend to Michigan, and then bookended its winter break with a pair of splits.

The losses caused Harvard's ranking to slip a bit but it was still a top-10 team and in a guaranteed tournament position when the Crimson began the second half of its season.

Harvard was well positioned to make a run for a regular season title, however, losing both matches to league-leading Quinnipiac ended that hope.

Harvard swept the rest of its schedule to end the regular season #7 in the polls and, more importantly, well inside the top ten for the PairWise rankings.

With their lofty position, Harvard was guaranteed to make the NCAA tournament no matter what happened in the conference postseason but that didn't stop the Crimson from trying to repeat as league champions.

John Farinacci finally got Harvard on the board with under 4 minutes to play and avoid a historical loss but that was about the only silver lining in an otherwise terribly cloudy game.