Crimson Dominates Bears in Conference Opener

Last night, Harvard women’s water polo faced Brown in the Crimson’s first conference game of the season and routed the Ivy League rival, 15-5, in a personal milestone for coach Ted Minnis.

“That’s my first Ivy win against a varsity team, men or women’s,” Minnis said. “That’s what I’m always going to remember.”

Harvard (7-2, 1-0 CWPA) drove through the Bears (1-4, 0-1) in a push toward the ECAC Championships, where the teams will face each other yet again on Saturday.

With only a day’s rest between last night’s contest and Harvard’s five-game series over President’s Day weekend, traces of the fatigue that plagued the Crimson on Monday in its first two losses of the season were absent.

While last night’s game marked the end of a 10-day break for Brown, the extra rest was not sufficient to stop the Harvard charge led by junior co-captain Devan Kennifer, who racked up five goals, two steals, and an assist on the night.

Although the contest began slowly with the score knotted at one goal apiece for most of the opening five minutes, Kennifer launched what would become a nine-goal Crimson run with a skilled, backwards shot as she overpowered her sole defender to find an opening.

The Bears’ possessions were limited, particularly in the first and second quarters. But when they were able to take control on offense, the foundation of their strategy was built off frequent drives and constant movement.

On the other hand, Harvard seemed static on offense, merely passing the ball around the perimeter rather than driving to find openings.

Brown catered to the Crimson’s strengths in this way, dropping down on defense and allowing Harvard to control the perimeter with consistently accurate shots from players like freshman Shayna Price, sophomore Elise Molnar, and junior Monica Zdrojewski, all of whom notched two goals each, most of which came from behind the five-meter mark.

“Something that I talked about all year is that … we’re not going to adjust to what teams are doing—[we’re going to] make them have to … adjust to what we’re doing,” Minnis said. “That’s a big part of what we did. We didn’t try to come in and change who we are. We just came in and said ‘This is us, try and stop us.’”

The Crimson’s tight press defense succeeded in keeping the ball outside of the Bears’ two-meter mark—or anywhere within their perimeter—for most of the night.

The combination of Harvard’s up-close defense and Brown’s mobile offense proved to be a formula for multiple defensive ejections for the Crimson.

“Our defense just couldn’t quite handle it sometimes,” Kennifer said. “They … got us kicked out a couple of times, but I think our five-on-six defense stopped them most times. We’d like to minimize those kick outs, but the fact that we can recover when we do is comforting.”

Harvard showed it was able to more than recover from these disadvantages on multiple occasions throughout the night. In particular, toward the close of the first half, after Price was ejected, Kennifer shut down a shot from the Bears with a brutal block that landed right in Price’s path as she was exiting the penalty box.

Running with her luck, Price took the ball down to Brown territory, unmarked and untouched, only to fake a shot and then skip it into the goal, boosting the score to 7-1. The Crimson brought the score to 9-1 before the end of the half.

With the break came the end of the Harvard’s streak of nine unanswered goals; the Bears scored within the first 30 seconds of the next half.

Although its shots rarely found the back of the net, Brown came out in the second half with a different mentality. The Bears were much more aggressive with their offense and got off several more shots than in the first half.

However, after a slight offensive lull, the Crimson picked up again toward the end of the third stanza, going on a 3-0 run to cement its dominance.

The start of the fourth quarter brought in the second-string players, who rode down the clock—and scored a few goals—to finalize the 15-5 victory.

With a rematch with Brown on the horizon in less than three days, Harvard is going to continue practicing in hopes of repeating its success.

But Saturday’s game won’t be any different from last night’s, according to Minnis.

“We’re going to keep playing the system,” Minnis said. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

—Staff writer Patrick Galvin can be reached at pgalvin@college.harvard.edu.