Last season, the only thing separating the Harvard men’s soccer team from the NCAA Tournament was Penn. But with a 2-0 win over the Crimson in the season finale, it was the Quakers who captured the Ivy League crown as well as an automatic tournament bid.

After a year of waiting, Harvard (11-4-2, 4-1-2 Ivy) finally earned its revenge on Saturday. Behind an 89th minute goal from freshman forward Christian Sady, the Crimson picked up its first victory over Penn since 2010.

But despite closing the season with a win, Harvard found itself on the outside looking in when the 48-team tournament field was announced by the NCAA Division I Men’s Soccer Committee Monday. 

After recording its best record since 2009, the Crimson held an outside chance of making the field, but according to Harvard coach Pieter Lehrer, the team had tempered its expectations. 

The Crimson had entered the weekend trailing Dartmouth and Princeton by two points in the Ivy League standings, needing a win and losses from both rivals to earn an automatic bid. Otherwise, Harvard—ranked no. 55 in RPI—faced a steep hill to obtain an at-large bid.

In the end, the chips would not fall into place, as both the Big Green (11-4-2, 5-1-1) and the Tigers (11-3-3, 5-1-1) picked up wins in their final games. Meanwhile, Harvard fell to no. 59 in RPI.

By virtue of a 2-1 win over Princeton in October, Dartmouth—ranked no. 27 in RPI—received the automatic bid from the Ancient Eight. The Big Green takes on Fordham in the opening round Thursday. 

Meanwhile, the Tigers join the Crimson on the outside of the field, having narrowly missed the cut. Princeton finished the season ranked no. 41 in RPI, but with several teams lower in the rankings receiving automatic bids for winning their conferences, the Tigers were out of luck.

Harvard played to a 0-1-1 record against the co-Ivy League champions.

The Crimson tied Dartmouth when the two sides clashed three weeks ago in Hanover, as senior midfielder Kyle Henderson found the back of the net on the team’s only shot of the contest.

Harvard was not as fortunate on the road against Princeton, however. Despite mounting a comeback late in the game, the Crimson could not climb out of an early three-goal hole, falling to the Tigers, 3-2. 

The loss would be the only one that Harvard would endure in conference play, but it proved to make all the difference in the standings—backing up a claim made by junior defenseman Philip Fleischman back in October.

“Every game in the Ivy League is like a single elimination tournament,” Fleishman said.

Appears that way.

Good news comes in pairs for the Harvard football team.

A day after learning that ESPN’s College GameDay would set up shop in Cambridge for the annual Harvard-Yale game, the Crimson was promoted to No. 14 in the FCS Coaches Poll. The ranking marks the team’s highest since 2011, when Harvard claimed an outright Ivy League title.

At 9-0, the Crimson is one of two undefeated teams in the FCS. The other, Coastal Carolina, inhabits first place in the Coaches Poll after a 52-21 shellacking of Monmouth last Saturday.

An unblemished record is not the only attribute that distinguishes this season’s Harvard squad. Of the 121 teams in FCS football, Harvard boasts the stingiest scoring defense, allowing a measly 11.0 points per game. 

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Just before the Harvard men’s basketball team started off its season, it already began to plan for the next one. On Tuesday, Vermont Academy three-star guard Corey Johnson became the fourth player to join the Crimson’s class of 2015.

Johnson, who boasts size (6’6”) and a nice shooting touch, is part of Harvard coach Tommy Amaker’s effort in recent classes to replace the shooting that left Cambridge last spring—when able shooters Brandyn Curry ’13-14, Kyle Casey ’13-14, and Laurent Rivard ’14 graduated.

The signing cements Harvard’s growing ability to recruit north of the border. Johnson, who is from Ontario, would be the fourth Canadian on the Harvard roster—joining freshman Chris Egi (Markham, Ontario) and juniors Agunwa Okolie (Ajax, Ontario) and Patrick Steeves (Montreal, Quebec).

Johnson will join Tommy McCarthy, Weisner Perez, and Blasa Dragovic in the four-person class, which could expand to five later this fall. McCarthy and Johnson, along with current sophomore Corbin Miller and freshman Andre Chatfield, will be the core of the future in the backcourt for Amaker’s squad.

After the Harvard men’s basketball team (1-0) opened its season with a 21-point win over Cambridge neighbor MIT, it faces a stiffer challenge Sunday against Holy Cross in the Coaches v. Cancer tripleheader. Below, The Back Page takes a quick look at the three main things to keep your eye on heading into Sunday’s tilt.

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In his first Bracketology prediction of the year, ESPN expert Joe Lunardi has placed the Crimson as a No. 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament. This would be the highest seed that Harvard has ever had in the Big Dance by a factor of a half after the Crimson entered the Big Dance last year as a then-record 12th seed.

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