M. Water Polo Finishes 4th At Easterns

The Harvard men’s water polo team finished its season this past weekend, closing out the year with a fourth-place showing at the Eastern Championships at Blodgett Pool.

The team, entering as the sixth seed after winning its third-place game at the Northern Championships, faced the difficult task of taking down No. 20 Johns Hopkins in the first round to advance.

The Blue Jays had already defeated the Crimson twice this season.

“This is the weekend we train for all year,” head coach Erik Farrar said. “We played the toughest schedule in our team’s history, and I think it made us tougher as the year wound down.

After weeks of laborious cross-country excursions, Harvard’s first extended break of the season afforded the team with much-needed rest in preparation for its final weekend.

The rest paid off well, as the Crimson upset Johns Hopkins in the first round to move into the semifinals against No. 11 St. Francis.

Although Harvard ended the weekend on a losing note, falling to St. Francis in the semifinals and George Washington in the third-place game, the results of the weekend spell future success for the Crimson’s younger players.

“We’re playing tougher opponents now—this is the way the program is going now,” sophomore Spencer Livingston said. “[A top-four finish] is what we’re shooting for now, and we’re going to come back better and stronger.”

GEORGE WASHINGTON 7, HARVARD 5

A costly turnover quickly transformed into a breakaway.

With the game tied at 5 in the dying seconds of the third quarter, a Colonials attacker received a lofted pass halfway down the pool and sprinted towards junior goalkeeper Jay Connolly’s net in search of the go-ahead score.

But what seemed to be a foregone conclusion was not to be, as Connolly smacked away the scoring attempt—one of three fast-break saves for the goalkeeper.

“He was the player of the tournament in my eyes,” Farrar said. “If it wasn’t for Connolly, things could have gotten ugly. I’ve said he’s one of the best goalkeepers in the country, and I think he proved why this weekend.”

Unfortunately for the Crimson, the offense didn’t get the message that there was another quarter to play.

George Washington quickly posted a two-goal advantage at the start of the fourth and then clamped down on defense, leading to five minutes of goal-less play.

The Colonials featured a potent, counterattacking offense that took advantage of Harvard’s numerous turnovers.

“That’s kind of their game style,” Livingston said. “We couldn’t hold them in the frontcourt, and in the fourth quarter, their counters started becoming effective.”

ST. FRANCIS 18, HARVARD 6

The Terriers came out firing on all cylinders, jumping out to an early 5-0 lead in the first.

The Crimson, having suffered a 15-7 loss to St. Francis earlier in the season, had some familiarity with its opponent but was simply out-muscled by the nationally ranked squad.

Fielding what seemed to be the Serbian national water polo team, the Terriers had six different players of Serbian heritage score goals in the contest. Junior Nemanja Pucarevic led the team with four goals and an assist.

Harvard couldn’t contain the Eastern Europeans as the lead swelled to nine by halftime. By the end of the third quarter, that gap had widened to 15-2.

Regardless of the score, the Crimson fought until the final horn, outscoring St. Francis in the fourth.

Sophomore Egen Atkinson led the team with two goals, and Connolly posted 12 saves.

The loss dropped Harvard into the third-place game against George Washington and moved St. Francis into a championship showdown with No. 1 seed Navy.

HARVARD 9, JOHNS HOPKINS 7

“We trained all year to win this game,” Farrar said.

That training came down to the second half of the game against the visiting Blue Jays.

In the third quarter, the Crimson quickly saw its 5-2 advantage disappear with three consecutive scores from Johns Hopkins senior Sean McCreery. A Chris Hemmerle goal at the 1:41 mark gave Hopkins a late 6-5 lead.

“It was just one of those games where the goals came in bunches,” Farrar said.

For Harvard, those bunches came in the fourth. Two full weeks of rest and a season on the line inspired the Crimson to arguably its best quarter of the season.

Freshman Bret Voith singlehandedly torched the Blue Jays defense, scoring three of the last four goals of the game, including a spectacular display of strength where he broke away from a defender and successfully launched a point-blank shot to give Harvard an 8-6 lead.

“Voith just took over,” Farrar said. “He had some great working-class, blue-collar type of goals late in the game.”

With three minutes left, the Crimson defense once again stepped it up to shut out its opponents for the entire the quarter. Connolly recorded 14 saves to lead a defense that prevented Johns Hopkins from scoring on four of five man-advantage opportunities.

“We’ve been practicing for them for a couple of weeks, and we executed when we had opportunities,” Farrar said. “Lights-out defense all around.”

—Staff writer Mauricio A. Cruz can be reached at cruz2@fas.harvard.edu.