Water Polo Squad Mismatched; Fails Three Times in Opener

With only three days of practice, and an already injury-ridden line-up, the Harvard water polo team succumbed to three quick defeats in a quadrangular meet Saturday at the Brown University pool.

The Crimson squad had its finest match against Fordham, with the Rams delivering only a 12-8 thrashing. Yale and Brown were not so merciful, downing the aquamen by 15-9 and 11-6 scores respectively.

Despite the lack of fall-season training, several Harvard swimmers were still adept at finding the net. Sophomore Wes Raffel poured in nine total meet goals for the Crimson--an achievement which left him just a few votes shy of the tournament's most valuable player honors.

Team captain Al Bozer and Dan Dais corralled four goals apiece, and George Magalack chipped in with three goals and some strong defensive play.

Bozer said yesterday that Harvard might have had a chance to defeat all three teams with a little more practice time.

"It was one of our more disastrous tournaments, but we hope to do much better in the big meets at the end of October," he said.

The Crimson was further hampered in the Brown pool mis-match by the team's lack of a goalie. "We had to borrow a goalie from Brown just to compete in the tourney," Bozer said.

The water polo squad, which does not receive Athletic Department funding because of its "club" status in the University, will be at a disadvantage when it opposes a slate full of varsity opponents. However, Harvard placed fifth last season in Eastern water polo ranks, and second in the previous year.