Women's Water Polo Storms Tourney

Look out, Easterns, `cause her comes the Harvard women's water polo team.

After this weekend at the MIT Invitational, the Crimson thinks an Eastern title is within its reach.

Harvard went 3-1 in the roundrobin tournament this weekend, defeating MIT, Brown and Wesleyan, while falling to Metro--a powerful club team.

The MIT tournament marked the end of the regular season and Esterns are scheduled for next weekend at Brown. The Crimson enters the tournament seeded fifth, behind Slippery Rock, Maryland, Bucknell and the host Bears.

The top two finishers at Easterns will advance to Nationals, scheduled for May 15-17 in Vienna, Va.

"We've now beaten Brown, and we were missing several players in our loss to Bucknell earlier in the season, so we are in good shape," senior Tri-captain Bridget Lyons said. "Slippery Rock is head and shoulders above the rest of the field, but we are neck and neck with Bucknell and Maryland. It is going to come down to whoever is more fired up."

The Crimson started off the MIT Tournament with a Friday night loss to Metro, 10-8, Metro is a club team boasting a squad of collegiate veterans that plays year-round.

"We played a great game against Metro. They beat us earlier this season by over 10 goals, and I think this shows how much we have improved," Harvard Coach Nancy Nitardy said.

Senior Tri-Captain Liz "The Wiz" Brummond led the Crimson with three goals on four shots and one assist, while Lyons came up with three steals to lead the defense.

"Liz and Bridget just played their usual strong games. What more can I say?" Nitardy said.

Saturday was a better day for the Crimson, as it went three for three against Brown, MIT and Wesleyan.

The Brown game was a 12-7 victory for Harvard, and the game belonged to junior Tri-captain Jennifer Gahan. She led Harvard on both offense and defense, with five goals, two assists and three steals.

"Brown is just plain dirty, and that tends to throw off the younger players," Lyons said.

MIT threw a scare into the Crimson in the next game. Harvard went into the game with only one hour's rest after the Brown game, but still managed to hold on for an 8-7 victory.

"We were tired, but that wasn't all of it. We overlooked them a bit. Our defense did not adjust enough, and we needed more shots from the offense in the second half than the four we had," Nitardy said.

After that, it was Easy Street for the Crimson, as it trounced Wesleyan, 17-9. Gahan and Brummond again led the Crimson in scoring, with six and three tallies, respectively. Brummond also chipped in three assists.

"We have really good motion on offense, and that has been the key to our improvement on the attack," Brummond said. "We are never standing still."