Men's Water Polo Blames Losses on Fatigue

The Harvard men’s water polo team entered last year’s Northern Division Championships riding high. The squad was ranked No. 15 nationally and had earned the second seed in the prestigious tournament. The Crimson had to be considered a shoo-in for an Eastern Championships berth.

But lowly Brown, thought to pose little threat to Harvard’s future plans, stunned the Crimson with a dramatic 7-6 victory, courtesy of a game-winning goal scored with just 15 seconds remaining.

Since then, Harvard’s squad has undergone a major overhaul. Five of seven starters have graduated from last season—including Honorable Mention All-American Mike Masteron ‘03—and four freshmen are now on the roster. Add in new coach Scott Russell to the mix, and the team is barely recognizable.

But none of Harvard’s changes have righted the ship for this struggling, puzzled team.

Since the Bears slammed the door shut on the Crimson’s 2002 campaign, Harvard has won just once in 10 games.

The reason cited for the poor performances is not poor team chemistry nor is it lack of talent. Rather, it is simple fatigue from an intense workout schedule the likes of which none of the swimmers has ever seen.

“In the previous years we only did mornings at the beginnings of the year,” junior captain Rick Offsay said.

Not so this season.

Three times a week the squad practices twice a day—for an hour beginning at 6 a.m. and then for two and a half hours in the afternoon—with afternoon workouts on other non-game days. In other words, the Crimson has been worked to the brink of collapse.

“[It] makes the college schedule pretty difficult, considering we’re not done at practice until seven and later dinner at eight,” Offsay said.

Add in three or four games each weekend for the past three weeks and the result is a team running on fumes.

“We don’t have one-hundred percent in the tank at the beginning of the game,” Offsay said. “We can go out and play that first quarter as tough as anyone, which is the promising thing [and] gives me hope for the rest of the season.”

Unfortunately for Harvard, games are longer than just one quarter.

Worn down, the Crimson have collapsed in the second half of close games on several occasions, most recently in a rematch against Brown.

Harvard trailed just 2-1 after a tough opening period, only to be out-scored 11-1 the rest of the way.

To make matters worse, injuries to key performers—senior Todd Schulte and sophomore goaltender Robbie Burmeister—have forced Russell to attempt to extract more minutes from his core group, depriving them of rest and depleting their energy.

“[Last year], we had a deeper team and were able to balance the load,” Offsay said. “We’re relying on some of our guys to play the whole game. When guys are playing four full games on the weekend and then these practices, it just adds up.”

The news is not all bad. After a flurry of games to start the season, the schedule the remainder of the way is significantly relaxed, with just three games scheduled before the Northern Championships kick off on October 31.

But for the present, the team does not plan on relaxing its training schedule. If games are not scheduled, the squad plans on continuing its rigorous work-outs, while using the weekends to take a break.

“We’re going to continue training for the next few weeks and then start to back off a bit at the end of the month,” Offsay said. “We can take the weekends a little bit lighter, rest and relax.”

And as the team moves closer to its second tournament test, it should finally return to full strength, with Burmeister and Schulte slated to return in the next few weeks.

“I’m optimistic that as we get rested, which will coincide with the return of those guys who are injured, we’ll be playing a lot better,” Offsay said.

Knowing that the season comes down to the Northerns and then Easterns in terms of defining success, no one seems too worried by the poor performance thus far.

“Obviously we’re down when we lose this much,” freshman Michael Garcia said. “But we’re all trying to stay positive. I think most of us—even if we’re losing—we’re putting it behind us.”

And with that mentality, the squad should have a fair shot at turning the tables on Brown if they meet again come November.

“We’ve all been making a deal out of being so tired, but a lot of these games earlier in the season aren’t as important,” Offsay said. “It’s not like in football where you have to go out and win every game or you have no chance. We’re training with an eye towards something at the end.”

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu