Mixed Results Mark Start of League Play

After a quick start this weekend, the Harvard women’s water polo team could not quite match up against ranked, intraconference competition.

Harvard fell to No. 17 Hartwick in its final game on Saturday by a score of 12-3 in Oneonta, NY. Earlier in the day the Crimson had beaten Queens College and Utica handily, 14-3 and 12-3, respectively.

These three Saturday games were the first games of league play for Harvard (10-3, 2-1 CWPA Northern Division).

The Crimson will play at Blodgett pool its first home game against division and Ivy rival Brown next Friday at eight.

“It’s always nice to play in our own pool,” said senior goaltender Lydia Gardner. “For one thing, there won’t be screaming fans heckling us. Also, it’s nice to be familiar with the conditions.”

HARTWICK 12, HARVARD 3

The Crimson battled hard to stay close throughout the game, trailing 5-2 at halftime and 7-3 after three quarters, but the Hawks (15-6, 4-0) took advantage of several Harvard miscues on offense and capitalized on several quick counters to score five times in the final quarter to pull away for the victory.

“The fact that we hung with them for three quarters was good,” senior 2M-0 Mollie Mehaffey said. “Obviously, though, we wanted to keep up with them [for] 28 minutes.”

The nine-goal differential was the largest for the Crimson in a defeat this season, but it wasn’t because of lack of effort on Harvard’s part.

“Our intensity level was the highest it had been all season,” Gardner said. “After the game, even the refs, who had seen us play all year and in the past, came up to us and told us how well we played.”

“We had a lot of rest between this game and the other two,” Mehaffey added. “This was the game we were mentally preparing for all week.”

Gardner made 10 saves in net for Harvard to lead an all-around stellar defensive effort.

“Our defense was great,” Gardner said. “This was probably one of the best defensive games we have played all year.”

For the Hawks, junior Olivia Colebourne made 11 saves in net, including six in the fourth quarter to squash any hope the Crimson had of coming back.

The loss continued Harvard’s recent problems against Hartwick. The Hawks beat the Crimson three times last year by an average margin of eight goals. Harvard has not beaten its league rival since before the current seniors came on campus.

The team will get at least one more shot against Hartwick this year. The Hawks come to Cambridge on April 7.

HARVARD 14, UTICA 3

Harvard received a balanced effort from its offense to rout the Pioneers this past weekend.

Senior Arin Keyser and sophomore Vivian Liao each scored four goals, while Mehaffey added three.

In all, five different players scored for Harvard.

“The first two games were good experiences for us to play some of our players who normally wouldn’t get a lot of playing time,” Gardner said.

In two games last year, Harvard beat the Pioneers handily in each game, winning by scores of 19-0 and 18-3.

The relative ease with which the Crimson was able to win its first two games allowed it to save energy for its match against Hartwick.

“We wanted to be more fluid in time for the Hartwick game,” Mehaffey said.

Freshman Nicola Pearlman and Gardner split duties in goal for Harvard.

HARVARD 13, QUEENS COLLEGE 3

Harvard opened conference play with a resounding win over its conference opponent.

Seven players scored for the Crimson, led by sophomore Cassandra Forsyth with four.

“We really tried to make it a team offense,” Mehaffey said. “We wanted to make sure everyone was contributing. It is good for overall self confidence.”

The Lady Knights have not posed much of a problem for the Crimson recently. Last year, Harvard won 19-4.

“These games were good opportunites to work on things we had done in practice like set picks and try new defenses and offenses,” Mehaffey said. “In practice, we were playing against teammates. It was nice to figure how teams would react when they did not know what you were going to do.”

—Staff writer Ted J. Kirby can be reached at tjkirby@fas.harvard.edu.