M. Water Polo Battters Bullies

Dirty play, injuries and ejections don’t usually suggest the ingredients of a perfect weekend. But as the Harvard men’s water polo team concluded its regular season, the result was four big wins heading into postseason play.

The Crimson ran its winning streak to seven this weekend with four league wins at Connecticut College in New London, Conn. Harvard (14-4, 10-1 CWPA) beat two ranked teams—No. 15 St. Francis and No. 20 Iona—en route to its sweep of the meet.

Harvard hasn’t lost since an 11-3 setback to No. 13 UC-Santa Barbara and No. 5 USC on Oct. 6. The Crimson’s strong CWPA finish secured the No. 2 seed in the Northern Division playoffs in two weeks.

In winning all four games, the Crimson put together its most complete defensive performance of the season.

“Our defense took a big step in the right direction,” said co-captain Mike Masterson. “We were really clicking, and shut down most teams’ set offenses well. The defense is finally coming together.”

Harvard 8, Iona 6

Despite two late goals that made the final score deceiving, the Crimson easily defeated the No. 20 Gaels. Harvard jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the first quarter and never relinquished the lead.

Co-captain Alex Fisher scored three goals, and five other players found the back of the net.

The late Iona rally came in the final 1:50 of regulation. The end of the game got even stranger when senior netminder Paul Tselentis—who blocked eight shots— was ejected with 11 seconds left in the game.

Still, by that point Harvard had the game well in hand.

“The score was a lot closer than the game was,” said senior driver Theo Ludwick. “The game was already over [when Iona scored the final two goals].”

Harvard 8, USMMA 4

Just after its thrilling and unusually violent win over St. Francis, the Crimson experienced a mild letdown against the less-regarded U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. Fatigue from the exhausting victory contributed to a 3-3 tie.

But the Crimson caught its second wind in the second half, outscoring the USMMA 5-1 to pull away. Harvard shut the Marines out in the final frame to punctuate the win.

Masterson and fellow senior Istvan Zollei each scored two goals, and freshman backup Robbie Burmeister was solid in goal.

Harvard 15, St. Francis 11

The highlight of the weekend and perhaps the season for the Crimson was marred by several low moments from No. 15 St. Francis.

After a defeat at the hands of the Crimson two weeks earlier, the Terriers came out fighting in more ways than one. From the first quarter, St. Francis players pummelled the Crimson in the pool with a number of illegal hits above and below the surface.

“I don’t know what happened,” Ludwick said. “Maybe they felt there was more at stake because this was a league game. But they changed things. They didn’t come out to play water polo, they came out to take shots at us.”

The intensely physical contest featured five game ejections, a yellow card and a red card, after one ejected Terrier deliberately splashed the referee and charged the official after leaving the pool. He had to be restrained by several teammates.

Sophomore Mike Gerrity was one of the casualties, leaving in the second quarter after sustaining a hard hit. But Gerrity, like his team, was resilient. The Crimson matched the Terriers goal-for-goal throughout the chaos, and Gerrity returned to score three goals in the fourth quarter, keying a 6-3 final frame.

“It would have been very easy to give in to what they were doing, but we didn’t succumb to their thuggery,” Masterson said.

“It gave us something to focus on and rally around,” Ludwick added. “We knew that we weren’t going to stoop to their level.”

Gerrity finished with four goals and five players each scored two, a typically balanced effort for the Crimson in an unusually high-scoring affair. Tselentis stood his ground in the shootout, amassing 13 saves in a game the participants won’t soon forget.

“This was the most physically demanding game I’ve ever played,” Masterson said. “Afterwards, the ref told me that it was the second most difficult game he’s ever reffed, behind an international match between Russia and Italy.”

Harvard 20, Conn. College 3

The weekend began with a relatively routine thrashing of Connecticut College. The Crimson outscored its hosts 11-2 in the first half in the romp. Junior Rick Offsay scored four goals for the Crimson, while Masterson and Schulte each had three. Junior Reid Bolton was rarely challenged and finished with six saves.

—Staff writer Martin S. Bell can be reached at msbell@fas.harvard.edu.