Water Polo Drops Three at Easterns

With a record of 12-12 going into the Eastern Championship, the women’s water polo team knew it had the opportunity to grab either a winning season or a losing one. Unfortunately for Harvard, the unranked Crimson squad fell in three close contests to No. 7 Michigan (32-6), No. 19 Bucknell (17-10) and Maryland (15-19) to end the year 12-15.

Harvard entered the three-game championship seeded eighth out of eight teams, knowing that a victory over some of the top seeds would propel the Crimson into the NCAA tournament. But while Harvard did improve on last year’s 12-16 record, a win was not in the cards.

“It was kind of hard—we set ourselves up coming in eighth seed,” junior Patty Smith said. “But every single game we did not give up. We put up a really good fight.”

The fight was obvious, with each match ending in a tighter score as the weekend progressed. Although the Crimson could not pull out a win, the team was still proud of the good moments it earned.

“I like to think the weekend will be remembered more for the good things, since it was our last tournament,” Smith said. “We’re looking to hopefully build on what we have now and get ready for a better season next year.”

Additionally, with three-straight losses going into summer and fall training, the team hopes to learn, improve, and be more determined next year.

“It really [is frustrating] to end your season with three losses,” freshman Elise Molnar said. “The thing about losing big games is that people get frustrated, and as they are training they really remember. It pushes people to work harder and push themselves harder so that it doesn’t happen again.”

MARYLAND 12, HARVARD 11

Harvard ended its season yesterday with one of the most impressive goals of the weekend. Trailing with only seconds on the clock, junior goalkeeper Shami Entenman volleyed the ball up to the four Crimson players lined up in front of the Terrapins’ goal. As the ball flew towards the cage, co-captain Kristina Berqquist tipped it in with only two seconds remaining in the game.

“That was a standout moment of the weekend,” Smith said. “It was good to end on a really awesome goal—especially for Kristina to end her last game.”

In addition to Berqquist’s goal, sophomore Devan Kennifer completed a hat trick with her last shot, pulling Harvard within one point in the fourth period. Kennifer was named to the Eastern Championship All-Tournament Second Team after scoring five goals on the weekend.

Sophomore Shannon Purcell and Smith scored two apiece as the Terrapins and Harvard went back and forth, tying the game three times during the match. While Maryland led, 8-6, going into the half, Entenman’s four saves in her first collegiate start as goalie helped the Crimson stay in contention.

“In the Bucknell and Maryland [games], we could have won those games, we should have won those games,” Molnar said. “We just didn’t.”

NO. 19 BUCKNELL 12, HARVARD 10

Saturday’s match was just as tight for Harvard, as the team faced No. 19 Bucknell for the third time this season. The Bison won the first matchup in late February, 9-7, while the Crimson, known for its impressive overtime play, grabbed a 13-12 overtime victory in early March.

“We’re really good at overtime, but we need to push through to get to overtime,” Smith said. “It obviously is better to beat them before the overtime decision, but I would have felt confident [that] if we had gone into overtime, the score would have been different.”

This rubber match began with a splash as Molnar opened the scoring for Harvard 1:31 into the game, followed by a goal from Bucknell 21 seconds later.

“There are things that we did wrong, but for the most part, we all played a really good game,” Smith said. “Especially at the start of the Bucknell game, we were still rolling off of that energy [from Michigan], but it wasn’t enough apparently.”

The Crimson trailed, 10-8, with seven minutes left on the clock before the Bison went on the attack, netting a goal less than a minute later. After Harvard pulled within two, sophomore Monica Zdrojewski brought the deficit to one midway through the period, but Bucknell had one goal left in it, ultimately taking the game, 12-10.

NO. 7 MICHIGAN 18, HARVARD 10

The weekend began with the toughest game for Harvard, as the squad faced the tournament’s top seed, No. 7 Michigan, for the first time this year.

“That was the best we had ever played them—we scored 10 goals,” Molnar said. “I don’t think many teams have, especially in our conference.”

The first period ended tied at three, but as the next eight minutes played out, the Crimson’s defense began to fall apart, while the Wolverines’ offense took control, scoring nine goals to Harvard’s three.

“The third and fourth quarters were good water polo, water polo worth watching,” Molnar said. “It was the second quarter that killed the game for us.”

The Crimson tallied one more goal in the third period and three more in the fourth, but even with sophomore goalkeeper Laurel McCarthy’s six saves, it was not enough to keep Michigan from taking the victory, 18-10.

“I’d say we had some moments of brilliance, and moments when any normal team would have thought it was fine, but our team knew we could do better than we did,” Smith said. “[Overall it was] a very strong weekend and season that will hopefully build for something better next season.”

—Staff writer Alex Sopko can be reached at sopko@fas.harvard.edu.