Men's Water Polo Gets First NCAA Championship Win

With 55 seconds left in the second overtime and down one point, captain Joey Colton connected with freshman Austin Sechrest to even the score and force a sudden death overtime. Minutes later, the Crimson would strike again to clinch its first ever NCAA championship win on Saturday. The No. 10 Harvard men’s water polo team (26-6) took down No. 12 Bucknell (23-5), 13-12 in sudden death overtime to advance to the next round of play-in games.

“It’s the postseason, it’s the NCAA tournament,” sophomore Nathan Ondracek said. “No team is going to come out and give us an easy game. We were prepared to have to fight for four quarters which turned into four quarters and three overtime periods.”

Bucknell scored first, finding the back of the net midway through the first quarter. Sechrest answered with a penalty shot a few minutes later, but Bucknell scored again to round out the quarter with the 2-1 lead.

Momentum flipped in the second quarter when senior Noah Harrison capitalized on a Bucknell foul with another penalty-shot goal with only 2:45 left in the half to birth a 9-2 run by Harvard. Senior Dan Stevens followed with two consecutive goals of his own to even out the score 4-4 before entering intermission.

“We kept fighting for the whole game which is a good sign,” Ondracek said.

The Crimson came out of the gates hot in the second half, outscoring the Bison 5-2 in the third quarter. Senior Viktor Wrobel scored the first goal of the half, followed by another goal by Dan Stevens to ensure a hat trick. The last three of the quarter were scored by freshman Charlie Owens and sophomores Nick Bunn and Grayson Judge.

Early in the fourth, Harvard widened the gap to 10-6 with a long strike from Colton to take a comfortable four goal lead. However, Bucknell wouldn’t go out that easily and slowly brought the game back within one goal (10-9) with only three minutes left on the clock. The Bison’s Rade Joksimovic, conference player of the year and rookie of the year, tied up the game 10-10 with a second-chance goal and only 19 seconds left in regulation play.

“It was a great team effort. I think our depth and stamina was really tested, we hadn’t played a team that long all season,” junior captain Harry Tafur said. “Hats off to Bucknell they played us one hell of a match. In most games going down 10-6 in the fourth quarter is a sure fire win for the winning team and they brought it back… They really kept their composure and gave us a great game.”

Bucknell was able to get on the board first in the first overtime, but Harvard answered and forced a second.

In the second overtime, the first two minutes were scoreless until Harvard broke through and forced another overtime.

The Crimson defense held strong, keeping Bucknell scoreless on two possessions. Then, with 1:20 remaining, sophomore goalie Anthony Ridgley found Tafur down the pool. Tafur fought through Bucknell defense to score the game winning goal and secure the chance to compete for a spot in the final four in California.

“For me personally I was really excited. Obviously being part of team that has just broken the number of wins record is incredible and to do it on such a balanced team where everyone is contributing is a great feeling,” Tafur said. “The team on the whole is really happy but also really focused on this next game we have on Thursday and looking forward to taking a shot at the final four.”

Stevens led the offense with three goals and Sechrest and Colton notched two of their own along with two assists as well. The defense totaled 10 steals, led by two each from Colton and Harrison. Ridgley was dominating between the posts with 11 saves, three steals, and one assist.

“Everyone’s excited,” Ondracek said. “It was the seniors’ last game to ever play at home so a lot of emotions there… We keep saying that we don’t want our story, this team’s story, to end. We didn’t want that story to end at this game. Everyone’s happy that we get to practice a few more times and play at least one more game with this team.”

—Staff writer Ginny Miller can be reached at virginiamiller@college.harvard.edu.