WATCH: Women’s volleyball plays Harvard tonight for NCAA bid

Starting a season 0-3 in your conference doesn’t typically lend itself to winning championships.

But then again, this year’s women’s volleyball team was anything but typical.

After their three consecutive losses to Ivy League opponents, they went on a 10-1 conference run to finish at 10-4 in the Ivy League, splitting the championship with Harvard.

Prior to beginning Ivy League play, the team went 4-2, but dropped their first three league matches to Penn, Harvard and Dartmouth.

In their last seven games, the Tigers beat every team in the Ivy League

Junior Cara Mattaliano, who was named the 2015 Ivy League Player of the Year on Tuesday, says: “Starting 0-3 was really difficult, but it allowed us to play each following game without as much pressure because we knew we were the underdogs and people didn’t expect much from us.”

The team beat both Harvard and Yale, an impressive feat. Cara Mattaliano calls those two wins the most memorable of the season because “my teammates that are juniors or below had yet to beat those teams.”

Mattaliano describes the turning point of the season as their victory at Penn. She says, “Since that point, we gained the confidence and urgency to go on and go undefeated the rest of the season”.

Junior Cara Mattaliano’s 3.4 kills per set ranked third in the Ivy League

Because the team shared the Ivy League title with Harvard, they will play a 7pm matchup tonight at Harvard to determine which team will receive an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament. The game can be viewed on the Ivy League Digital Network.

While it is technically possible for the losing team to be selected as one of 32 teams who play in the tournament despite not winning their conference, it is highly unlikely, as Princeton is ranked 142 and Harvard is ranked 152.