Water Polo Derails Engineers

You're a coach and your team possesses more potential, depth and talent than it has in years. What do you do when this same group of guys show up for their home opener with no emotion? What do you do when they display nothing but uninspired play?

It is a situation no coach ever wants to face, but unfortunately for the Harvard men's water polo team (3-2, 3-1 EWPA), Coach Don Benson '88 is at a crossroads.

In what should have been a goliath victory, Harvard pulled itself out of Blodgett pool last night with only a 12-9 victory over MIT.

"Especially at this pool it should have been a 20 to two or three goal game," said junior Mike Zimmerman. "But our defense was not good, our counter-defense was awful.... We just came out flat and that was our biggest problem. We didn't come out ready to play."

Much like in its performance last weekend at the Northern Division Tournament, Harvard was unable to unleash any of its weapons. Its speed--the cornerstone of the Crimson attack--was nullified as the Crimson players were beat up and down the pool, leading to numerous Engineer breakaways.

After two minutes of scoreless play, Engineer Zachary Lee burst down the right side of pool and found himself all alone in front of Crimson goaltender Ed Chen. With no help in site, Chen was defenseless as Lee deposited the ball into the back of the net for a quick--and surprising--1-0 lead. And before Harvard could react, a mere 16 seconds later, MIT was up 2-0.

"We came out really flat for our home opener and once again we let a team that we are far superior to believe that they can play with us," Benson said. "That's what happens when you get in and you give up two goals to a team that's not your equal."

From there on in, MIT's confidence grew.

"MIT is definitely a stronger team than it was last year, but that it's not an excuse for us to come that sluggish," said sophomore Dror Bar-Ziv, who tallied two goals in the contest. "We had a horrible warmup and we weren't focused."

Harvard did rebound with three unanswered goals in the first period, but it still found itself down by a goal heading into the second period. That's when the Crimson started to show some life.

Finally utilizing its speed, Harvard broke out to a 7-4, lead after a beautiful series of passes.

After gaining possession deep in the Harvard zone, Zimmerman broke away from the crowd and found a streaking junior Tom Chalberg. Without hesitation, Chalberg hit sophomore Chris Tilgham, who beat all MIT defenders down the middle of the pool.

Tilgham made it look simple after that, as he lofted the ball over the head of MIT goaltender Aaron Wong.

The Engineers would not go away, however. MIT made a valiant attempt at a comeback late in the game, outscoring Harvard by a margin of three to one in the final seven-minute period.

"It's more of a mental thing as opposed to a physical problem," Bar-ziv said. "We are definitely ready physically, but mentally we're just not there. We're not focused."

Sneaking by MIT adds to a problem that has been brewing since Harvard dropped two crucial games against regional opponents Queens and UMass this past weekend at the Northern Division Tournament. Last year the Crimson exceeded its expectations, but after losing only two players and gaining six new freshmen, this season was to be different. This season was supposed to be one which catapulted Harvard into an upper echelon of water polo.

"It's really hard to finger," Benson said. "We just really came out uninspired. It was astonishing. If we play the same against Brown or Navy the way we did against Iona or MIT, yeah, we'll get hammered."

The Crimson has little time to change its current course as it travels to Brown tomorrow and then heads out to Navy for a weekend tournament.

"Hopefully, very much hopefully, starting tomorrow everything will change," Bar-ziv said.

"I'm still not nervous," Zimmerman added. "I know that we're a much better team than this so I think that it is just a matter of us coming out focused and ready to play."

Regardless of the hopes and the belief in the underlying potential, Benson remains in a quandary, wondering how to unearth the talented team he knows he possesses.

"Personally I may have to do a lot more yelling," Benson said. "Last year if guys weren't playing intense we got out and did laps. We haven't done much of that this year because I thought that we were mature enough and disciplined enough to get ourselves ready to play. I guess I was taking a Pete Carroll approach instead of a Bill Parcells one."

Time is starting to run out and all Benson can do now is hope that the answer emerges tomorrow night against Brown.