W. Water Polo Splits Four

Morning is their favorite time of day.

The Harvard women’s water polo team took both of its early matches, but dropped each of its afternoon contests, finishing 2-2 at the Bucknell Invitational this weekend.

The Crimson opened up the invitational with a match against George Washington (4-5) Saturday morning, edging out the Colonials by a score of 3-2.

Harvard (6-4) trailed 1-0 for the entire first quarter, before sophomore Molly Mehaffey took a feed from classmate Arin Keyser, shot the ball under the arm of her defender and beat the George Washington goaltender to even the score with less than five seconds remaining.

“I think the goal sort of revitalized us,” Mehaffey said. “Not all of our shots were conventional this weekend, but we never quit firing.”The Crimson held on for the one-goal victory in the relatively low-scoring affair.

Harvard returned to the pool Saturday evening against Bucknell, but despite a valiant comeback, the Crimson fell in sudden death to the host Bison, 10-9.

Harvard trailed 8-6 with just 3:06 remaining in the contest. But the Crimson fought back as sophomore Sarah Kennifer scored off a pass from Keyser to pull Harvard within one with 1:21 remaining. Just 34 seconds later, junior Teresa Codini found the back of the net as well to bring the Crimson even with Bucknell at eight and force overtime.

Kennifer struck again early in the first overtime period to put the Crimson ahead for the first time since the 4:24 mark of the second quarter. The goal came as the result of an odd series of events, as a referee had apparently blown the whistle, causing most of the players to stop. Amidst the confusion, Kennifer alertly grabbed the ball and deposited into the net for a goal.

“Everything was in mass confusion, and no one knew what was going on,” Mehaffey said. “Then, Sarah just pushed [the ball] into the net, and she looked around as if to say ‘Why didn’t anyone else do it?’”

Harvard managed to contain the Bison for the rest of the first and most of the second overtime period, before the Bison’s Elizabeth Jensen found the net with just 20 seconds remaining to knot the game back up and force sudden death.

Kennifer won the sprint for the Crimson to open up the sudden death period, but Harvard failed to convert on its opportunity. Bucknell raced down the other end where Taylor Voeltz found herself wide open for an easy score just 1:18 into sudden death to seal the Bison victory.

“I was definitely nervous going into sudden death because whoever wins the sprint usually wins the game,” Kennifer said. “But this time it didn’t work out like that.”

Harvard is now 1-1 against Bucknell on the season, as the Crimson defeated the Bison 9-7 at the Princeton Invitational earlier this season.

After playing the late game on Saturday night, Harvard had an early wake up call Sunday morning, as it was back in the pool taking on Michigan State.

The Crimson jumped out early on the Spartans, leading 2-0 after the first quarter.

“I thought they’d be a lot better because they’re a Big Ten school,” Kennifer said. “But after being up at the end of the first, I think we had the confidence that we could beat them.”

Michigan State stormed back over the next two periods, taking a 6-4 lead into the fourth. Codini responded for Harvard, as she dominated the final quarter, scoring four unanswered goals to push the Crimson past the Spartans for an 8-7 victory.

On Sunday afternoon, Harvard stayed with No. 9 Indiana (8-3) for most of the match, but the Hoosiers pulled away down the stretch as they posted an 11-3 win.

Indiana jumped out to an early 2-0 lead, but the Crimson was able to force an ejection and capitalize with a Mehaffey goal to cut the margin to one.

Two Hoosier goals in the final 90 seconds of the second quarter put Harvard in a 4-1 halftime hole. But the Crimson stole some of the momentum back from Indiana out of the break on the strength of a Keyser goal that closed the gap to two. Indiana finally was able to put Harvard away, however, scoring the next four goals to go up 8-2 before coasting to the eight goal victory.

“We were all exhausted going into the afternoon,” Kennifer said.