Harvard 4-0 Old Dominion: Crimson Cruise Into NCAA Second Round
For a long time on Friday, this looked like it might be the upset of the first round. Then Harvard remembered who they are.
Old Dominion, the Big East champions, held the No. 3 seeds scoreless into the second half at Berylson Field. The first-ever meeting between the two programmes was tight, cagey, and exactly the kind of game where a favourite can come unstuck. Then junior Emily Bronckers stepped up to a penalty corner and fired low into the net. The deadlock was broken. The floodgates opened. Harvard 4, Old Dominion 0.
Bronckers has a habit of this. She scored the overtime winner against Yale earlier this month that sealed Harvard’s outright Ivy League title. Here she did it again when her team needed someone to take the game by the scruff of the neck. The Crimson added three more before the end, and the Monarchs’ fairytale week was over.
ODU’s run ends, but what a run
Old Dominion arrived in Cambridge as one of the stories of the season. The Monarchs beat Liberty 1-0 and then stunned UConn 2-1 to win their first Big East title since 2023, with Madison Zalewski scoring early in the fourth quarter of the final and Cosima Perleth adding an empty-net insurance goal. They arrived 15-4, matching their best win total since 2022, and they did it behind Serena Langendoen, the Big East Defensive Player of the Year, who scored 17 goals and set up eight more.
None of that counted for much against a Harvard side that simply doesn’t give games away. The Crimson finished 15-2, won the Ivy League regular season at 7-0 for a second straight title, and came into this tournament as the No. 3 overall seeds. Their only defeats all season came against Yale and UMass. Old Dominion threw everything at them for the best part of an hour. Harvard absorbed it, then scored four times.
What it means
Harvard are 16-2 now, and this is their fourth straight NCAA Tournament appearance, the longest streak in programme history. They’re also hosting NCAA games in consecutive seasons for the first time. The Crimson lost their Ivy semi-final to Yale 2-1, and that defeat clearly stung. Friday was the response.
Sunday’s second round is a proper tie whoever comes through. Harvard host the winner of Friday’s late game between No. 6 Yale and UMass at 1pm ET (11pm PKT) at Berylson Field. Yale are the Ivy Tournament champions who beat Harvard 2-1 in last week’s Ivy semi-final. UMass are 18-2 and have already beaten Harvard once, 3-1. Either way, it’s a rematch with a team that knows how to beat the Crimson. For our money, Harvard will need to be sharper than they were in the first hour on Friday. The second-round opponent won’t wait that long to punish them.
