The UConn men’s soccer team (5-0-3) remains unbeaten after a 1-1 tie against the Harvard Crimson (2-1-1) on Saturday night. The physicality of this defensive slugfest cannot be understated, as the two squads amassed a total of two red cards and six yellow cards between them.
Around 22 minutes into the game, junior midfielder Charlie Holmes found the back of the net, assisted by freshman Preston Alessio and sophomore Ayoub Lajhar, to score the first and only goal of the game for the Huskies. This would be his second in two games and third goal of the season.
Shortly after Holmes’ goal, however, things started to go south for the Huskies.
Only 15 minutes later, Holmes was ejected from the game, receiving a red card, causing the Huskies to play with only 10 men with more than half the game remaining.
Being down a player didn’t faze UConn all too much. Redshirt freshman goaltender Kyle Durham kept the Crimson out of the goal for much of the contest, recording a total of five saves throughout regular time.
The Huskies weren’t the only team to play down a man, either.
Harvard’s Yuta Hata, a junior forward from Tokyo, Japan, also received a red card to even things out between the two teams, playing a 10-on-10 matchup in the final 20 minutes of the game.
The Crimson quickly responded to Hata’s absence when sophomore midfielder Phoenix Wooten squeaked the ball past UConn’s Durham to tie the game up at 1-1 with 15:24 left to play.
Harvard’s aggressive play style persisted throughout the entirety of the match. Disregarding Hata’s red card, the Crimson’s Wooten, Juho Ojanen, Tim Langenbahn and Xavier Tanyi all collected yellow cards, while UConn’s Balthazar Saunders and Xavier Perez Rodriguez were the only ones booked for the Huskies.
Both teams would remain scoreless, ending the matchup with a 1-1 tie. Despite being outshot by a 15-7 margin, the Huskies’ defense withstood the Crimson’s stout offensive attack even with the absence of one of their best players earlier in the game. This is a significant reason why UConn has been so successful after only eight games into the 2025 campaign.
With that, the Huskies start Big East Conference play this week with a matchup against the 11th-ranked Akron Zips, who joined the conference for men’s soccer in 2022. Kickoff is set for 7:00 p.m. on Saturday at FirstEnergy Stadium in Akron, Ohio. This will undoubtedly be UConn’s toughest game of the season.