Women's Water Polo Picks Up Pair of Victories Against Conference Opponents

The regular season is over. The field has been set for the CWPA Championships.

The seeding for the tournament, to be hosted by the Harvard women’s water polo team at Blodgett Pool from April 29 to May 1, was determined by conference play over the last couple of weeks.

The No. 18 Crimson (22-8, 3-4 CWPA) solidified itself as the number five seed in the field of eight schools after going 2-1 this weekend to close out its CWPA slate. Harvard traveled to Princeton, NJ, where it defeated No. 21 Hartwick (15-12, 3-4) on yet another fourth-quarter comeback and rolled past George Washington (7-16, 0-7) for its first win by double-digits since March 17. However, the Crimson fell to Bucknell (16-14, 4-3) by one goal to become the Bison’s first ranked victim all year.

Harvard thus finished with a losing record in conference play at 3-4, but still walked out of DeNunzio Pool having set a couple of school records. The Crimson’s 21st win set the mark for most wins in a single season, surpassing three other 20-win seasons, while sophomore goalie Cleo Harrington broke the school record for most saves in a season by recording 25 saves on the weekend and upping her season total to 253.

Michigan, Indiana, Bucknell, and Princeton claimed the 1-4 seeds, respectively, while Hartwick, Brown, and George Washington rounded out the conference tournament seeding.

HARVARD 18, GEORGE WASHINGTON 4

Harvard had its way from the start, opening up a 6-2 first-period lead and shutting the Colonials out in the next frame en route to an 18-4 victory over last-ranked George Washington.. Freshman attacker Kristen Hong and senior attacker Yoshi Andersen led the Crimson with four goals apiece, while Harrington made seven stops in net before being replaced by freshman goalie Sam Acker.

“We knew what we had to do,” junior attacker Melissa Balding said. “We knew we needed to secure a win, and we wanted to prove that we were the better team early on in the game, so we came out with a lot of energy.”

Hong’s four-goal performance constituted her ninth game of the season with four or more goals. Both Balding and senior attacker Charlotte Hendrix added hat-tricks; Balding has caught fire recently, scoring nine goals on the weekend and recording 22 over the team’s last ten games.

Meanwhile, Harrington’s 247th stop moved her into the school record book for most saves in a single season, past Ariel Dukes ’15, who held the previous mark.

“Cleo’s just an unbelievably talented goalie and she works so hard all the time,” Andersen said. “She’s just been a huge part of our team’s success this year—I think she’s definitely the best goalie on the East Coast.”

BUCKNELL 7, HARVARD 6

A lack of execution haunted Harvard in an otherwise tight game against Bucknell (16-14, 4-3). The Crimson entered the fourth quarter in a 5-5 deadlock with the Bison, but was outscored 2-1 in the final quarter and stripped on the final possession en route to losing, 7-6.

“We had a lot of opportunities,” Balding said. “We just didn’t capitalize on our opportunities and that’s what cost us that game.”

Balding and Martinelli led Harvard with a pair of goals apiece, while Osborne and Hendrix rounded out the scoring for the Crimson.

After going down 4-1 to Bucknell early, Harvard scored four unanswered to take a 5-4 lead in the third quarter. The Crimson, however, could not maintain that lead, as the Bison reeled off three straight in the third and fourth quarters to take a decisive 7-5 lead.

Sophomore attacker Colleen Barron and senior attacker Eleanor Marrs led Bucknell with a pair of goals apiece. Marrs has now scored 60 goals and dished out 53 assists on the season.

HARVARD 12, No. 21 HARTWICK 11

Another game, another comeback.

Sitting at 1-3 in conference play, and facing an 11-8 deficit with 3:52 remaining in the game, Harvard mounted a three-goal rally in just over two minutes to knot the game against Hartwick (15-12, 3-4) at 11. Andersen then came up with the winning goal with 1:27 to go to give the Crimson a 12-11 victory and 2-0 season sweep of the Hawks.

“[I] just kind of read the goalie and saw that she wasn’t fully paying attention to me,” Andersen said. “So I decided to flip it into the cage and it went in.”

Martinelli and Balding netted four goals apiece to lead Harvard, and Andersen also added a pair to overcome three different Hartwick players scoring hat-tricks.

–Staff writer Bryan Hu can be reached at bhu01@college.harvard.edu.