Water Polo Team Takes Second in Tourney, Beats Yale and UMass After Loss to Brown

The Harvard water polo team finally put all the pieces together over the weekend to finish second, behind powerful Brown, in the New England Water Polo Championships.

The Crimson swimmers came into the tournament unheralded and were slated to face three of the top-ranked squads in the East. The result for two of three foes was surprise and defeat.

On Friday night, the Crimson took the pool against the number-one-ranked Bruins, who had drowned the Harvard club so badly earlier this year that the players stopped counting when the score got to 20-1.

But this time, Brown had to battle at their best well into the second half before finally subduing the vastly-improved Crimson waterballers, 12-5. The impressive Harvard performance was a sign of things to come the next day, when the swimmers would go beyond improvement to victory.

On Saturday, Harvard met second-ranked Yale. The Elis seemed unable to take their foes seriously, and were shocked to find themselves down after one quarter, 4-3.

Yale righted itself and charged back to take a 12-9 lead with less than four minutes left to play, but Harvard refused to give up. Player-coach Wes Raffel, who broke loose for nine tallies in the game and was the tournament's leading scorer, notched a goal to pull the Crimson within two.

In the dying moments of the contest, sophomore John Bruce, who only started to practice with the team last week, scored his first two goals of the year to send the game into overtime.

In the first extra period, Tom Wolfe was fouled in the penalty area, and Raffel converted on the penalty shot for his last goal of the day. A later insurance tally gave Harvard a 14-12 bulge.

The Crimson played most of the required second overtime a man short because it was over the penalty limit, but goalie Stuart Miller held on for an inspring 14-13 triumph.

The weekend's triumphs left the club's record at 5-6 and qualified the swimmers for the Eastern Championships in Pittsburgh this weekend.