M. Water Polo Falls at Easterns

The last time the No. 20 Harvard men's water polo team faced No. 13 Navy, the Crimson came away with its biggest win of the season, a 6-5 upset that ranked with the greatest victories in the program's history. It sparked an 11-game winning streak that propelled the Crimson to its best regular season record in years and, more importantly, made the team believe it could do it again.

On Saturday, Navy got revenge when it counted.

The Midshipmen effectively ended Harvard's season by defeating the Crimson, 15-5, in the first round of the Collegiate Water Polo Association's Eastern Championships.

Navy went on to win the meet and clinch an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament with wins against No. 12 UMass and No. 11 St. Francis.

With the loss, the Crimson (23-9) fell out of contention early and was reduced to playing losers' bracket games for the remainder of the weekend.

In the other games, Harvard narrowly defeated Bucknell and then lost a close game to Princeton to finish the tournament in sixth place.

"Sixth at Easterns is a good place to be, since we haven't been there before," junior Mike Crosby said. "The win was nice, but now our goal is to be in a position where we can be at least in the top four next year."

Navy 15, Harvard 5

Harvard's players seemed affected early on by the jitters that accompanied their first trip to Easterns. Harvard was unable to react to a Navy attack that had not changed very much since the last encounter.

"I'd say that the psychological effect of not having been here before showed in our play early in the game," Crosby said. "Navy is a team that goes to Easterns every year."

The Midshipmen took advantage of several Harvard miscues early on and raced out to a 9-3 halftime lead. The game was essentially over at that point, and Navy used both its second- and third-string goalies in mop-up duty.

Harvard's game plan was to take the ball out of dangerous 2-meter Sean Foster's hands, forcing the Navy to rely on its depth. The Midshipmen respondent with a dominant, balanced effort.

Foster netted three goals, but so did senior driver Andrew Sause and freshman Joe Donahue. Two other Navy players added two apiece.

"We got frustrated after the start and departed from our game plan," Crosby said.

Harvard 11, Bucknell 10

The loss to Navy set up a second-round game against Bucknell (20-20), an unranked squad that hadn't defeated a team in the top-20 all year.

The Bisons had come close, however. Earlier in its season, Bucknell narrowly lost to UMass, 13-11, at the Princeton Invitational. The Crimson, conversely, lost all of its games to the Minutemen by at least five points.

Bucknell displayed its ability to play good teams well again against the Crimson. Harvard led, 8-3, in the second quarter, but Bucknell stormed back to tie the game in the fourth.

"I think some of us thought this would be an easy victory," Crosby said. "I wish we'd been a little less complacent. We needed to keep up the attack and the defense, and we didn't."

Harvard managed to slow the Bisons' momentum in the last quarter to preserve the victory.

Princeton 7, Harvard 6

Sunday morning's contest against Princeton (23-10) officially only meant the difference between fifth and sixth place in the tournament.

For Harvard, however, it essentially represented the Ivy League Championship. The Crimson had already beaten Brown, the only other Ivy League school with a varsity team.

When last they met, Harvard was unable to make the score close until the very end of the game. This time, the contest was tighter, but the result was the same.

The Tigers took an early 3-1 lead, but the Crimson battled back to get within one at 4-3. From then on, the teams traded goals until Harvard finally tied the game, 6-6, in the fourth.

Princeton's Kevin Foster had five goals.