W. Water Polo Rallies; NCAA Bid Within Reach at Easterns

Although no trophies or medals were awarded this weekend at the round-robin Harvard women's water polo invitational, the Crimson Squad can't help but feel a little smug about its performance.

With the exception of one loss to an all-star team from the metropolitan Boston area, Harvard was undefeated on the weekend, playing some of its best water polo in recent memory.

"It was a great weekend," senior Jen Gahan said. "I've been with this team more or less for five years (She took time off from school), and this is one of the best team performances we've had."

"I was extremely pleased with how everything came together," coach Maureen Travers said. "This is probably the best that we've played all year. We had a couple of tough games, and we stepped our level of play up a notch and met the challenges."

Despite its round-robin nature, the tournament was of considerable importance to the team's season-long goal: a berth in the NCAA tournament. To get a guaranteed spot in the tournament, the Crimson must finish in the top two at the Eastern championships April 29-May 1, and the Crimson's performance this weekend was important for that tournament's pairings.

"Right now, Slippery Rock pretty much has a lock on the top seed at Easterns, but there are really four of us--us, Brown, Maryland and Bucknell--that are going for the number two seed, which would give us the inside track to the NCAAs," Gahan said. "We knew that if we could do well against all of the college teams at this tournament, we would have a good shot at it."

And that the team did. after losing a tightly 10-8 contest to Metro-Boston, Harvard ran off four consecutive wins: against Wesleyan, 14-5, on Saturday afternoon; Penn State, 20-3, on Saturday night; Princeton, 10-8, on Sunday; and Brown, 15-12, on Sunday.

Against Metro-Boston, the team came out a big intimidated by the senior national-level team, but played better as the game went on. Metro-Boston's offense dictated the tempo of the game early--despite the attimes spectacular play of Crimson goalie Amber Keasey--and managed to hold on for the 8-5 win.

"Metro-Boston really acted as a sort of warm-up game for us," Travers said. "It was a loss, granted, but we gradually gained confidence throughout, and that carried over into our other games."

It certainly carried over into the Crimson's next two games on the day, against Wesleyan and Penn State.

Against Wesleyan, the Crimson unleashed a potent, balanced offense and managed to keep Wesleyan's star player, a former member of the U.S. junior national team, under wraps, en route to a nine-point win.

And against Penn State, described by Travers as "a very weak team," Harvard worked its magic again to the tune of a 17-point victory.

"Those two games weren't challenging by any stretch of the imagination," Gahan said.

While the college foes on Saturday proved push-overs, Sunday's-- Princeton and Brown--weren't by any stretch of the imagination.

Princeton, a virtual cream puff in past years, actually got out to a 5-4 lead early in the game, before the Crimson stormed back, eventually winning by two, 10-8.

"We didn't expect them to be that good at all," Gahan said. "We just heard a little while before that game that they had been playing well, so we had adjust mentally."

"I was particularly impressed in the Princeton game with our ability to get up for them," Travers said. "We knew very little about them--we didn't even know if they were any good, but we managed to pull it off, anyway."

With Princeton beaten, the stage was set for the game with Brown, a traditional rival, and one of the four prospective number-two seeds at Easterns. The Crimson had beaten the Bears a week before, and thus, with a win, could all-but-ensure a seed higher than Brown.

Behind its strengths--balanced scoring and good goaltending, the Crimson came through, 15-12.

"The Brown game was a nice way to end it," Gahan said. "We played well in a number of ways. It was just a good all-around effort."