TEAM OF THE YEAR: On the Ball

It was the kind of season the Crimson had dreamt about for a decade.

For the first time in 10 years, the Harvard men’s soccer team took home the Ivy League championship outright and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the 12th time in program history.

The surprising Crimson first entered the national rankings in mid-October and ascended all the way to No. 13 in time for the start of the tournament.

After opening with a 5-2 record against nonconference opponents, Harvard faced rival Penn for its first league game of the season. With both teams considered strong contenders for the Ivy title, the encounter seemed to be an early battle for Ancient Eight supremacy. When the Quakers knocked off the Crimson, 3-1, Harvard found itself in a sudden hole.

“Losing down there pretty handily was a kick in the butt and a wakeup call that forced us to rethink our approach and everything we’re about,” captain Charles Altchek said. “When it was over, we all got together and really buckled down as a team knowing full well that if we lost to Yale the next weekend, or even if we tied, it was probably the end of our Ivy League title hopes.”

But after the shock of the Penn decision, the Crimson turned up the heat, burning the Bulldogs, 3-2, in a must-win contest that snapped a two-game losing streak.

Although Yale struck first and held two leads in the game, freshman Andre’ Akpan tallied two goals and an assist to propel Harvard to victory.

“Going into this year, I don’t think that we ever, as a Harvard team, in the past three seasons had come back, and we did it three or four times this year,” Altchek said.

The Crimson continued its winning streak when it faced Cornell, with Altchek scoring on a header in overtime to win, 1-0, and crushed No. 14 Brown, 6-2. Princeton proved to be no match for Harvard either, as the Crimson notched a 2-1 victory.

The last big obstacle in Harvard’s title quest was Dartmouth. Entering the match, the Crimson was tied with Penn for first in the league, with Dartmouth and Brown not far behind.

Harvard had faced the Big Green with the similar stakes in 2005 but lost in the 90th minute, barely falling short of the title.

This time, though, the Crimson rose to the occasion and cruised to a 3-1 win. Its final league match against Columbia, a breezy 3-1 triumph, clinched the title outright, as the team became the school’s first Ivy League champions of the 2006-07 school year.

On the strength of its league crown, Harvard received an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament and drew Binghamton in the first round. The Crimson faced an early 1-0 deficit, but rallied to put away the Bearcats, 2-1.

“Roaring back, I think everyone knew, including the opposing team, that we were going to win that game no matter what,” Altchek said. “It was just a matter of time before we got the tying goal and the winning goal.”

Harvard moved on to challenged UCLA in California, where the Bruins proved to be too much for Harvard to handle. The Crimson yielded, 3-0, to end its stellar season.

Although Harvard advanced further than it had in 10 years, it encountered its share of challenges, including working a number of rookies into the rotation.

“During the first weeks, everyone took a while to integrate,” freshman Kwaku Nyamekye said. “Luckily, the team was really helpful and the upperclassmen helped make us feel comfortable on the team.”

But the rookie talent turned out to be a boon rather than a burden for the Crimson, particularly in the case of Akpan, who was named Ivy League Rookie of the Year and honored with an All-Ivy First Team selection. With 34 points on 11 goals and 12 assists, Akpan set a Harvard freshman scoring record and led all Division I freshmen in the major scoring categories.

According to Altchek, one of the season’s most important gains was the “invaluable experience of the younger guys in going forward because now they know exactly where they need to be to go to the next level.”

With an Ivy League championship under its belt, the Crimson will now to attempt to defend its title next season. The returning talent and postseason experience will definitely make Harvard a force to be reckoned with in the 2007 season.

—Staff writer Courtney D. Skinner can be reached at cskinner@fas.harvard.edu.