W. Water Polo Tames Tigers

"Welcome to Blodgett Pool!" was the battle cry of the Harvard men's water polo team (6-3 overall) last night as it came from behind to beat Princeton 8-7.

Although the two teams practiced together while training in San Diego before the season even started, the Tigers had never played the Crimson at Harvard.

After last night, Princeton may never want to return.

For the past few years and throughout this entire season, Harvard has been unable to come through when it really counted. Games have been close, but that last surge of desire has been void from the Crimson attack.

No more, however.

With just over four minutes left in the game and Harvard trailing 7-5, sophomore Mike Zimmerman ripped a bullet shot into the left corner past Princeton goalie Erik Lin.

Zimmerman immediately spun around to the stands, pumped his fist and brought the crowd to its feet. At that moment, the players and the fans knew that the Crimson was not going to let this one go.

Less than a minute after Zimmerman's goal, captain Jonathan Gill lobbed the ball over Lin's head to tie the contest up at seven. Freshman Tom Elke then put home the winning goal with 2:20 left in the game.

That was all she wrote.

"This team has shown over the last couple of weeks that we can play with any team on the east coast," junior Andy Davis said. "It was just a matter of time before we pulled out a big one."

The Crimson started the game strong with a solid 2-0 lead after one quarter. A few letdowns, however, let the Tigers inch its way back into the game.

Princeton outscored Harvard 4-1 in the second quarter and then went on a rampage of four unanswered goals to take a solid 6-4 lead with only 2:45 left in the third.

"We had a few mental breakdowns in the second and third quarter," junior goalie Ed Chen said. "But we came back, and we proved that we can come back, and we proved that we can come back as a team and pull together."

And come back it did.

With time winding done in the third quarter, Zimmerman received the ball deep in Princeton territory. With the buzzer just about to sound, Zimmerman whipped the ball into the back of the netting to bring Harvard within one goal of Princeton heading into that final quarter.

It was all Harvard after that, and the crowd drank it all in.

"The fourth quarter definitely made it all well worth coming," senior spectator Mike Lopez said.

The next test for Harvard is tonight when the team faces off against the 12th-ranked team in the nation, Navy. The last time these two teams met was at the Navy Invitational where Navy pulled out a tough 12-7 victory.

"Last time we played [Navy], they opened up a 5-0 lead when we fought really hard to come back, but we couldn't hold on," Benson said. "This win is going to be a boost, and I think it will have us ready to play tomorrow night."

Dorothy said, "We're not in Kansas anymore."

After last night's emotional win, the Harvard players are warning Navy, "We're not in Annapolis anymore."