Men’s Soccer Travels to Princeton for Ivy League Opener on Saturday

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Harvard University men's soccer plays at the Princeton University in its Ivy League opener and in the final match of a five-game road swing on Saturday, Sept. 28 at 4:00 p.m. (ESPN+) at Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium in Princeton, N.J.

What to Know: Harvard Highlights

In a crosstown rivalry, the Crimson notched its first clean sheet of 2024 as Harvard tied with Northeastern (Sept. 17), 0-0. Junior goalkeeper Cullen MacNeil made five saves in his first shutout of the season.
Harvard earned 1-1 draws in each of its first two games to open the season. In its season opener against Holy Cross (Aug. 31) sophomore Dylan Tellado scored an equalizing goal in the 73^rd minute, and against Rhode Island (Sept. 5), senior Marko Isakovic netted a penalty kick in the 36^th minute.
Sophomore Dylan Tellado leads Harvard with six points on three goals. He ranks sixth in the Ivy League in goals (three) and seventh in points (six). Tellado scored two goals for his second career brace at No. 13 Seton Hall (Sept. 14). He scored his first goal of the season against Holy Cross (Aug. 31). He now has six career goals.
Senior Marko Isakovic ranks second on the Crimson with four points on the year. He scored his first goal of the season and second of his career at URI (Sept. 5). Isakovic tallied his first assist of the year against Holy Cross (Aug. 31) and added another at No. 13 Seton Hall (Sept. 14). He now has 11 career assists in 48 career games played.
Senior defender Jan Riecke has started all 55 of the Crimson's games since the start of the 2021 season.
Junior goalkeepers Lucian Wood and Cullen MacNeil have both made starts in 2024. MacNeil notched five saves in a shutout at Northeastern (Sept. 17) and four saves in a 1-1 draw at URI (Sept. 5) while Wood made three saves in Harvard's 1-1 draw with Holy Cross (Aug. 31). Wood made 16 starts in 2023, posting a 1.44 GAA and two shutouts.
Harvard returns a trio of All-Ivy selections from last season, including senior center back Jan Riecke, junior defender Ethan Veghte, and sophomore midfielder Erik Dalaker.
The Crimson brings back 12 of its 16 student-athletes who recorded a point in 2023.
Senior defenders Jan Riecke and Ludovico Rollo will serve the Crimson as captains in 2024.
In the Ivy League Preseason Poll, the Crimson earned the No. 3 position behind only first-place Penn and second-place Yale.
In 2023, Harvard finished second in the Ivy League standings, marking its highest finish in the conference table since 2015. The Crimson has moved up the league standings in each of the last three years from fourth in 2021 to third in 2022 to second in 2023.
Harvard trails Princeton narrowly in the all-time series, 42-45-10. The Crimson pulled out a 90^th-minute victory over the Tigers in last season's matchup.
Princeton has posted a 2-3-0 record on the season, falling to Georgetown (2-0) in its last outing. Daniel Ittycheria leads the Tigers with seven points on three goals and one assist.

What to Know: Outside the Lines

Senior Sam Bjarnason serves as the President of the Harvard Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and has represented Harvard at Ivy League SAAC events. Bjarnason earned selection as the male representative for the Ivy League for the NCAA Leadership Forum in November 2024. A volunteer at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, he is writing a senior thesis on potential improvements to the U.S. electoral system from a quantitative perspective.
Sophomore Erik Dalaker serves as the Co-Chair for the Coalition for Global Affairs at Harvard's Institute of Politics, President of the Harvard Nordic Club, and as a Student Ambassador for the Center for International Development. Fluent in seven languages – Norwegian, English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Swedish, and Danish – Dalaker spent two months in the summer of 2024 in Jordan, continuing his Arabic studies, while interning at a local Jordanian political think tank.
Senior Edwin Dominguez got engaged to his girlfriend in the spring of 2024. The two plan to marry in the fall of 2025.
Senior Kristján Gunnarsson spent the summer of 2024 working in strategy and business development. He serves as an active member of the Harvard College Events Board, the group that plans school concerts which have featured artists such as Swae Lee and Jeremih.
Sophomore Yuta Hata spent two months in Hong Kong during the summer of 2024 completing an internship that involved replicating and simulating robotic arms virtually.
Senior Marko Isakovic – a national champion in math in Serbia as a youth – enjoys solving difficult math problems by thinking outside the box, using pattern recognition, and other methods – a mindset that also serves him well on the pitch.
Sophomore Ben Kelly works for Harvard Student Agencies (HSA), a non-profit that raises money for students' financial aid as the largest student-run organization in the world.
Junior Rustin Khosravi spent the summer of 2024 in Barcelona, attending the running of the bulls in Pamplona and fly fishing in the Pyrenees Mountains.
Junior Cullen MacNeil has involved himself with the Harvard Innovation Labs' Student i-Lab, exploring several ventures including a device to help users manage phone addictions. A volunteer at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, MacNeil worked as a product manager at a startup called Scuba Aquatics in the summer of 2024.
Junior Nicholas Nyquist spent the summer of 2024 interning at a venture capital firm called nFront Ventures. Nyquist helped the firm source more than 200 companies over two months and helped the group expand its investor network in Europe.
Senior Jan Riecke led a sustainability competition for high school students around the world for the Harvard Undergraduate Clean Energy Group. Riecke has also worked for the World Economic Forum's Centre for Trustworthy Technology.
Senior Ludovico Rollo – who owns a vinyl record collection – is writing a senior thesis on the gut microbiome.
Junior Zachary Sardi-Santos spent two months in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in the summer of 2024 through Harvard's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies Brazil Summer Internship Program. Sardi-Santos interned at the Minsterio Publico of Rio de Janeiro, helping to solve public sector challenges. At Harvard, Sardi-Santos – a member of the Harvard Hillel and a tour guide for Harvard Student Agencies – also served as the male lead (Jason) in the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club musical, Medea, in the spring of 2024.
Sophomore Will Sherwood is a member of STAHR (Student Astronomers at Harvard-Radcliffe) as well as an editor for The Harvard Crimson.
Sophomore Dylan Tellado completed an internship with Nashville SC of Major League Soccer as a data scientist and software engineer. Tellado worked on constructing a model to quantify each team's control over the field at more than three million timestamps per game.
Junior Matus Vician – a pre-med student with an interest in orthopedic surgery – completed research at the Harvard Lab for Skeletal and Muscular Biology in the summer of 2024, measuring the metabolic cost of arm swinging during walking and running. A volunteer at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, he spent the summer of 2023 volunteering in Vietnam with Coach for College.
Junior Lucian Wood produced, wrote, and directed a short film – a 10-minute, dialogue-driven narrative that focuses on love, frustration, and mental health – in the summer of 2024. Wood is hoping to premier the film, titled "I See You," at national and international film festivals in the spring of 2025.