Water Polo Comes Back From Northern California As Winners

The Harvard men’s water polo team finished its weekend series in California with a 3-2 record. The Crimson (11-4) began with a victory over Santa Clara Friday night and went on to finish 13th at the NorCal Tournament held at Berkeley.

Weekend play began as the team beat the Broncos 10-5 .

“We came out and scored a few quick goals early and got up by a few,” said co-captain Mike Masterson.

On Saturday the team looked forward to playing in the prestigious NorCal tournament featuring the top 16 teams in the country. The No. 16 Crimson men faced No. 3 USC in their first match. Harvard was excited to play such a talented opponent, but knew a victory would be difficult.

“We didn’t have great expectations for the game. We wanted to see what we could do,” said senior Theo Ludwick.

The game began with a great offensive attack by the Trojans.

“They came out and scored a few quick goals early and got up by a few,” Masterson said. “We called a timeout, recomposed, and tried to inch back on the lead.”

The Crimson fell to the Trojans, 6-14. Though disappointing, the team valued the quality of competition.

“They were very deep and diversely talented. We definitely played well. I am glad we got to play against them,” Masterson said.

The team did not recover from the disappointment as quickly as they would have liked. Later on Saturday the Crimson fell to No. 12 UC-Santa Barbara, 3- 11.

“The loss to USC was still in our heads, and it was hard to come back and play,” Ludwick said.

The team returned to top form on Sunday as it went on to play UC-Santa Cruz. Up 7-2 at the half, Harvard was tested but held off to win 13- 8.

“We were able to rebound and our defense really improved,” Masterson said.

The Crimson continued its winning streak by playing No. 19 UC-Davis. Down 5-3 at the midpoint, the team shut down Davis in the second half and came back to win, 6-5.

The Crimson placed 13th, while the UCLA Bruins went on to sweep the tournament and finish first.

Harvard learned from the West Coast endeavor and looked forward to making improvements.

“More awareness and understanding of each other when physically and mentallly tired will help us improve our game,” Masterson said.

Working together, the team hopes to improve as they continue to focus on Easterns. The Crimson travels upstream to face MIT on Thursday at 6:45 p.m.

—Contributing writer Jane V. Evans can be reached at jvevans@fas.harvard.edu