Men’s Water Polo Struggle in California Series

This past weekend, the Crimson traveled to the West Coast to face four top-ranked southern Californian teams and struggled against the stiff competition.

Despite the rough weekend, Head Coach Ted Minnis emphasized that the team showed potential for better results in the future.

“I see a lot of glimpses of what this team is very capable of doing,” Minnis said. “They are such a hard-working group.”

Harvard 10, UCLA 21

No. 16 Harvard men’s water polo (5-6) started off its packed weekend by faltering to No. 1 UCLA (10-0) with a score of 10-21.

The game started with a swift goal, as UCLA’s senior attacker Chase Dodd scored 25 seconds in. Although the Crimson tried to fight back, the Bruins were able to put six more goals behind the net. Nonetheless, Harvard’s sophomore attacker Lukas Peabody scored the first point for the Crimson, ending the first quarter with a score of 1-7.

The second quarter followed a similar sequence with the Bruins swiftly scoring three points before Peabody broke UCLA’s streak with a goal for the Crimson. The teams went back and forth for the rest of the quarter, as Harvard put up another two goals which were matched by UCLA.

The game entered its third quarter with the scoreboard reading 4-12. Junior utility Ben Leichty scored for the Bruins followed by the Crimson’s freshman attack Emil Sogaard-Srikrishnan’s goal. Both Harvard and UCLA put the score past the goalpost but UCLA soon gained an even greater advantage with adding three points to their score. While freshman attacker Felix Pal added to the Crimson’s score, Harvard continued to fall behind, ending the quarter 6-17.

As the shrieking whistle signaled the final quarter, Despite Harvard rallying to score four in the final minutes of the game, it could not overcome the deficit. Harvard was met with a tough loss, the game ending with a score of 10-21.

Junior Utility Jack Burghardt discussed the struggles the team faced during the game.

“I think the base issue would be just the fact of how small our team is and running these small rotations, especially when we have injuries and just sort of everyone sort of everyone, not having as much rest as they may or may not want is always the toughest thing I think,” Burghardt said.

Harvard 13, Long Beach 23

The team jumped right back the next day as they faced No.7 Long Beach (7-2), but couldn’t come away with a better result.

The game started off hectic with Long Beach scoring eight points and the Crimson three. Sophomore center Gabi Acosta was responsible for three The Beach’s goals while sophomore defenseman Tyler Hogan, Pal, and Burghardt each scored one point for Harvard.

As the second quarter progressed the Crimson began to dominate. Burghardt was able to raise the Crimson’s scoreboard scoring three points while junior attacker Bradford Dickson and junior attacker Jacob Tsotadze each contributed one goal each. Long Beach added two to its score to put the team in the lead 8-11.

Twenty seconds into the quarter, junior utility Marc Frigola Navarro snatched a point for The Beach and soon after, his teammate, sophomore attacker Harper Stewart scored another goal. Long Beach dominated over the Crimson scoring five points in comparison to the Crimson’s three, but Harvard’s sophomore attacker Dean Strauser scored twice and Pal, once.

The Crimson met with difficulty once again in the last period as Long Beach maintained its lead. Although Hogan and Strauser gathered one point each for the Crimson, Long Beach scored seven points in the last quarter. The final score stood at 13-23 as Harvard was met with its second loss of the weekend.

“Especially when we’re playing against two top 10 teams this early in the season with little training I think one of the most important things that we’re trying to do is just remain process oriented,” Burghardt said.

Although the first two games ended in losses, Minnis says competing against highly ranked teams was a good growth opportunity for the Crimson.

“Playing in all this competition out in the sun, I thought, was good,” Minnis said. “I think we learned a lot about ourselves.”

Harvard 13, Fullerton 12

Shortly after the loss against Long Beach, the Crimson rebounded the same day against California State University at Fullerton Titans (5-7), winning 13-12.

The game began with the Crimson falling behind 2-0, with CSUF junior utility Andrew Barnuevo scoring within a minute into the first period. However, the Crimson bounced back just thirty seconds later with the first of four goals from Strauser.

Although the Titans were still in the lead, Harvard closed the gap with one penalty-awarded goal each from Strauser and junior attacker Vilas Sogaard-Srikrishnan. The first period ended in a tie between the Crimson and the Titans, 3-3.

By about halfway into the second period, Barnuevo netted two more goals against the Crimson, setting the score to 5-3. Towards the end of the period, the Titans had already scored four goals, twofold that of the Crimson. However, Vilas Sogaard-Srikrishnan seized a point in the last second of the period, bringing Harvard closer to victory.

The Crimson entered the third quarter with momentum, pulling ahead for the first time in the game, but the Titans responded to keep the score in deadlock. The third period ended favoring CSUF 10-9, placing each team in an unstable position.

The Titans opened the final period with an early goal, placing the Crimson behind by two points. There was one more goal from each side, maintaining a two-point difference. However, Strauser scored a point via penalty, with Vilas Sogaard-Srikrishnan netting his third goal of the game. The period ended with Hogan’s final goal offsetting the tie and bringing victory for the Crimson.

Burghardt said the team was able to brush off the past losses and bounce back for Fullerton.

“We had good quarters in those games even though we lost, and we just knew that if we were able to string together four really good quarters that we could pull out a win and that’s what we did,” Burghardt said.

Harvard 11, CMS 12

The final game of the weekend took place on Sunday against the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Stags (4-1), with the Crimson facing a heartbreaking end to its weekend.

Harvard put up the first point of the game, the first of three scored by Burghardt. On a power play, Strauser netted his first of five goals in the game, setting the game 2-0 within the first half. The first period was eventful, with Harvard securing a strong lead of five goals and CMS only two.

Just under one minute after the second period began, CMS junior attacker Thomas Walker scored his first of five goals. Walker’s next goal closed the gap in the score, now 5-5, but Emil Sogaard-Srikrishnan found the back of the net to set Harvard ahead again.

The third period began with goal attempts and exclusions from either side, neither team making progress on the scoreboard. The score went back and forth between Harvard and CMS taking the lead, but CMS junior center Jeffrey Koretz scored to bring the score to 9-8 by the end of the period.

After the third period ended with unsuccessful shots from Harvard, CMS seized another point to place it ahead by two. The team maintained a two-point difference until Burghardt scored again, followed by senior attacker Mason Hunt on a powerplay to even the playing field again. The competitive tension continued until the very end, with both teams hungry for a win. However, the Crimson fell to the Stags in the last second of the game, resulting in a tight loss of 11-12.

“We’ve all made mistakes,” Burghardt said. “As our coach was saying that’s definitely a team loss on our part, there’s a lot of things that we can fix even though we did have such good flashes. There’s always things that we can improve and things that we can work on in the coming games.”

Looking into the future

Despite the losses, Minnis noted many memorable moments from this weekend. Because many of the players and staff, including himself, are from California, he says it is always a great experience to play for friends and family.

“I’ve built this program in our culture on family,” he said. “So we have family dinners where it’s the team and their parents and family and friends at someone’s house — those are always great moments when we’re on a trip in California.”

Although the weekend ended on a down note, the tough competition faced this weekend serves as fuel for the Crimson’s motivation going into the Northeast Water Polo Conference.

Minnis described the beginning of the season as bumpy, but he says the focus is not on the team’s performance but the lessons learned and improvement made.

“They’re dedicated and want to be playing at a high level all the time, and so it’s such a great group to work with,” he said. “They’re a tight knit group of young men that show up every day, and put a smile on my face as we’re going to work.”

– Staff Writer Kaylyn H. Kim can be reached at kaylyn.kim@thecrimson.com.

– Staff Writer Tiffany Oh can be reached at tiffany.oh@thecrimson.com.