W. Water Polo Places Third at Northern Championships

Nothing gained, nothing lost.

The third-seeded Harvard women’s water polo team left the Northern Championships with a third-place finish, dropping contests to eventual champion Hartwick and runner-up Brown while defeating Connecticut College and Utica.

The Crimson (16-8) opened up the tournament with a convincing 18-3 win over the Lady Pioneers—a team which it defeated 19-0 in Loudonville, N.Y., earlier this season. But Harvard fell in the nightcap to Brown, 12-8, to finish second in its pool and set up a meeting with the Hawks yesterday.

No. 13 Hartwick dominated from the outset, speeding away for a 14-5 win. The loss sent the Crimson to the third-place game against Connecticut College, and Harvard extended its season record against the Camels to 3-0 with a 14-5 win.

HARVARD 14, CONNECTICUT COLLEGE 5

The Crimson’s fourth and final game of the Northern Championships saw it matched up against a familiar foe, Connecticut College.

Harvard destroyed the Camels in first two meetings between the teams, with the Crimson taking the first 15-3 and the second 18-3. While Harvard couldn’t quite match the dominating performance it put forth in the first two contests, the Crimson had no trouble dispatching fourth-seeded Connecticut College to take third place in the tournament.

HARTWICK 14, HARVARD 5

The Hawks (26-8) scored three first period goals and added three more in the second to jump out to a 6-2 halftime lead en route to a 14-5 semifinal win over the Crimson.

Harvard doubled its halftime total with two tallies in the third quarter, but Hartwick found the net four times in the period to take a 10-4 lead into the fourth.

The Hawks added four more goals in the final period, while the Crimson managed just one, to advance to the finals of the Northern Championships against Brown.

Freshman defender Bronwen Knox—the reigning Northern Division Player of the Week—scored seven goals and added two assists for Hartwick. Senior driver Kate Chambers posted two goals and two assists for the Hawks.

BROWN 12, HARVARD 8

It was slightly peculiar to see the Crimson seeded behind the Bears (14-11) in the Northern Championships, seeing as Harvard had taken three of four contests from Brown this season.

But two of the games between the Bears and Crimson—both Harvard victories—were stricken from the conference record, leaving the two squads with 1-1 records in the two official divisional contests. Brown received the second seed by virtue of a one-goal advantage in combined margin of victory in those two games.

The Bears scored just 17 seconds into the contest and added another for an early 2-0 lead. The Crimson scored three of the next five goals to pull within one nearing the intermission, but Brown freshman Ally Wyatt found the net to put the Bears up 5-3 at the half.

A four-goal explosion by Brown in the third gave the Bears a 9-6 lead heading into the final quarter of play. From there, Brown cruised to the 12-8 win.

Wyatt and sophomore Karlyanna Kopra each finished the game with three goals to allow the Bears to take the Bracket B title and avoid a matchup with Hartwick until the finals.

HARVARD 18, UTICA 3

The Crimson opened up the Northern Championships with an easy 18-3 victory over winless Utica.

The Lady Pioneers (0-17) suffered their only shutout of the season at the hands of Harvard on March 12. And while Utica managed to get on the scoreboard in this contest, it couldn’t come anywhere close to matching the talent on Harvard’s side of the pool.

—THE CRIMSON STAFF