M. Water Polo Falls to Brown

Well, it wasn't exactly what was supposed to happen. After losing the final game of the season to Brown last year, the Harvard men's water polo team expected to have sweet redemption last night at Blodgett Pool.

Unfortunately for the Crimson, the story doesn't always end like it's supposed to as the team fell once again to Brown, 11-7.

"I definitely had memories of last year's Brown game in my mind," sophomore Tom Chalberg said. "We got some great shots off, and if a few of those go our way then it's a different game."

Like a repeat from last year, Harvard made a valiant comeback in the final half. Two times in the third quarter, Harvard brought the deficit to only two goals, but each time Brown had an answer.

With only two minutes left in the quarter Harvard sophomore Michael Zimmerman ripped a shot into the lower left corner of the net to bring the quarter to a close with Brown leading by only two goals, 8-6.

A comeback looked promising for Harvard, but only 54 seconds into the final quarter, Kevin O'Sullivan drowned the final thoughts of a win for Harvard as he sank a shot past junior goalie Ed Chen to give Brown a commanding, and what proved to be invincible, 9-6 lead.

"We definitely came back in the third quarter," Chalberg said. "This time it just wasn't enough to make up the difference."

Coming out of the first half and down 5-1, Harvard knew that it had to come out fast. After scoring the first two goals of the half, Harvard was looking sharp. Then in a matter of seconds, an unfortunate sequence spelled certain doom and epitomized the entire game.

With only four minutes left in the quarter, Chen made a beautiful tip save right over the top post. Before Harvard had a chance to react and with Chen out of position, the ball bounced into the hands of O'Sullivan, who buried a shot into a practically open net to give Brown the momentum and a solid 6-3 lead.

"We could have beat them, I know we could have beat them," Chen said. "We just had a couple of mental breakdowns at key times in the game."

Ranked as high as 17th in the nation this season, Brown appeared as strong as ever. With its defense zeroed in on Harvard's top scorer, sophomore Michael Zimmerman, Brown treated Harvard as merely a speed bump in its way to the Eastern Championship.

"Let's put it this way," Brown head coach Erik Farrar said. "We have only lost to Harvard twice in 20 years so it is kind of expected that Brown will win--we did not want to make it as close as it was last year."

The one glaring weakness in the Crimson attack thus far in the season has been its lack of depth. Equipped with only 13 players, stamina may be an inviting target for teams entering Blodgett Pool this year.

"We just ran them into the ground because they didn't have the subs," Farrar said. "We are generally faster and considerably deeper so we were able to neutralize their two-meter set in Zimmerman."

No matter the outcome, Harvard remains confident in the rest of the year and will not let this game deflate the rest of the season.

"Our team has had one of the best pre-seasons since I have been here," Harvard coach Don Benson '88 said. "We came out really flat and that was disappointing. We are going to have a good team and I expect to beat them later in the season." Brown  11 Harvard  7