Men's Water Polo Takes on Tigers at Easterns

The Harvard men’s water polo team will be celebrating its 25th year as a varsity program in style this weekend. Blodgett Pool is home to the Eastern Championships, the final tier of playoffs, where the Crimson will face ivy-rival Princeton in its first match.

Though Harvard (10-12) will enter the game as the underdog against the Tigers (18-9), if the Crimson can maintain ball control, it has a chance to upset the same team that made it to the national championship game against UCLA last year.

Each team brings different strengths to the match.

Princeton, the defending Eastern Champions, are much speedier in the water and have one of the fastest players on the east coast on the team. The team lost its stellar goalie from last year, but otherwise, the Tigers are still very strong.

What Harvard lacks in speed it will have to make up with patience and control.

“They way that we are going to beat them is with slow, ugly, old school water polo,” assistant coach Ricky Offsay ’05 said. “If we play really smart controlled water polo, we have a chance to do something interesting. If we get crazy and hyper and try to get into a swim meet with them, it could get ugly. The way to beat Princeton is to beat them 5-4 not 10-9.”

Princeton’s speed enables them to create many opportunities off of counters, something the Crimson will be working hard to prevent.

“The biggest thing is ball control because they are basically a counter-based team,” junior co-captain Mike Garcia said. “If we play ball control it takes away their strong suit. We can play with any team if we take away their strength.”

In order to prepare for the Ivy contest, Harvard coach Erik Farrar has been having the team work on honing its skills all around.

“Can we beat them? Absolutely,” Farrar said. “But we are going to have to play well to do it. It’s [practicing is] pretty much the equivalent to taking a sharpening stone and sharpening your edge.”

The Crimson also needs to ensure it minimizes turnovers, and it has been working on its defense.

Even if the Harvard beats Princeton to move on to play St. Francis or Slippery Rock, it will still be fighting an uphill battle.

Farrar, who used to coach at Brown, is familiar with the special nature of Ivy League battles and is looking forward to facing the Tigers in the first round.

“You have to beat three really good teams,” Coach Farrar said. “It’s somewhat fitting we are locking horns with an Ivy rival.”

Harvard will need a team effort to compete with the Tigers. Farrar has noticed several players have been stepping up to the challenge during practices, mentioning senior Greg Valiant and sophomores Michael Byrd and Chris Ludwick.

“We’ve had some trouble scoring early in the year, it took us a while to really figure things out and for everyone to get on the same page,” Farrar said. “A lot of guys early in the year were in positions they’ve never been in. The cool thing about our game is the record isn’t really that important. Everything we have done is about getting to this tournament and seeing how far we can get in it.”

Since the Easterns are being hosted at Harvard during this milestone year, a large number of alumni will be present to see how far the program has come.

“There’s definitely a lot more motivation because a lot more alumni are coming down...[It is] added motivation to go out there and win,” Garcia said. The Crimson hope the added support will bring an atmosphere of increased excitement to the games.

“We’re definitely looking forward to being at home to have our friends and families and fans here,” junior John Voith said. “That offers a tremendous advantage.”

The Crimson play the Tigers Saturday at 1:30 p.m. in Blodgett Pool.

—Staff writer Megha Parekh can be reached at parekh@fas.harvard.edu.