No. 19 Harvard Men’s Water Polo Beats RV Brown and MIT

No. 19 Harvard men’s water polo swept its first two matches in the final round of conference play this weekend, tying its season-high of 21 goals in a game during its rematch against MIT.

With its two victories, the Crimson (13-12, 6-1 Northeast Water Polo Conference) remains in strong competition to challenge No. 6 Princeton, currently undefeated across its seven NWPC games, for the first seed in the conference championship. Its only conference loss this season came against the Tigers, during which it was missing freshman attacker Clay Carrington — a top scorer for Harvard this season.

All six teams will qualify for the NWPC Championship hosted at Blodgett Pool later this November, though the top-two seeds will earn a first-round bye.

“We got wins, and we’re 6-1 in conference,” head coach Ted Minnis said. “We’re pretty locked in on at least the two seed, which gets us that bye, which was something that we talked about that we wanted is to not have to play that extra game.”

The Crimson extended its winning streak to three games following its performance at the Julian Fraser Memorial Tournament in Santa Clara, Calif., the previous weekend. It first fell to top-15 opponents in No. 13 University of the Pacific and No. 9 UC Davis, before closing with a victory against No. 20 Saint Mary’s in its final non-conference match.

Senior Vilas Sogaard-Srikrishnan, typically an attacker, remained in goal across both games as typical goalies freshman Jonas Ransford and senior Oliver Price have been largely absent since the first round of conference play.

“It’s always going to be us playing defense and working hard, no matter who’s in the goal, no matter who’s in the game,” Minnis said. “You’ve got to work as a unit, next person up mentality. It’s very important that we just work hard for each other out there in every game. Win or lose, we can walk away and say we let everything and left everything in the pool.”

Harvard 13, RV Brown 12

Harvard opened its weekend with a nail-biting victory over RV Brown (19-9, 4-3 Northeast Water Polo Conference), scoring five unanswered goals to build a 10-5 lead before the Bears equalized at 12 late in the closing period.

With less than a minute remaining, senior utility Jack Burghardt scored the Crimson’s only goal of the fourth quarter to retake the lead and secure the 13-12 win. Burghardt ended the match with three goals, while freshman attacker Clay Carrington and sophomore attacker Connor Kim netted four apiece.

The close finish reflected the game’s highly contested nature, as the teams found themselves knotted in a tie six separate times — while Sogaard-Srikrishnan continued his stint in the net and made five saves on the day.

“Three of those goals came in transition off of turnovers or bad shot selections, and we had to do a better job and not have the counters,” Minnis said.

Burghardt opened the game with back-to-back goals from the center before Brown finally broke through and scored three unanswered. Two of the goals came from nearly identical crosses and tap-ins, whereas the other was a rocket from the wing that ricocheted in the top corner.

Kim evened the score for the Crimson out of a timeout, leaving things locked at 3-3 at the end of the quarter.

Two transition opportunities created uncontested looks that helped Harvard finally reestablish a lead in the second quarter, with freshman center Geoff Slutzky converting a power play in the waning seconds to go ahead 8-5.

The Crimson continued its offensive run into the third quarter, as Carrington buried two shots from the wing thanks to speedy transitions up the pool. Brown responded with clean perimeter passing and several goals from distance, including a contested laser from freshman utility Roland Csendes.

Carrington completed his third-quarter hat trick off a penalty, marking his fourth and final goal of the game. The Bears and Harvard then traded goals to end the quarter, narrowing the deficit to three heading into the fourth quarter.

The Crimson took a patient approach in the final frame, draining the clock with extended possessions as Brown bravely fought its way back to level the score at 12, continuing a 7-2 run that started in the third quarter. In particular, the Bears benefited from transition opportunities and drawing fouls, winning a penalty and power play on their first two possessions of the quarter.

Brown’s defense held Harvard scoreless up until the final minute, when the Crimson won a power play with barely any time on the shot clock. After taking its final timeout, Harvard rotated the ball around the perimeter before finally feeding the ball inside to Burghardt, who buried it into the bottom corner with 40 seconds remaining. The senior’s goal was the Crimson’s only goal of the quarter.

The Bears managed to draw an exclusion with four seconds left on the clock, but Harvard’s defense stood firm as Csendes’s bounce-shot missed high, ending the match in a 13-12 victory for the Crimson.

Harvard 21, MIT 11

Harvard finished its weekend with a convincing offensive display at home against MIT (7-15, 1-6), matching its season-high in goals scored in a game, which also came against the Engineers in its first conference meeting earlier in October.

The Crimson never trailed, but it was only able to truly pull away in the fourth quarter — limiting MIT to just one goal in the closing frame.

Burghardt spearheaded Harvard’s attack with seven goals, but a total of nine players contributed to the scoring, including hat tricks from Carrington and junior attacker Lukas Peabody.

“We’ve never had a problem with our offense,” Minnis said. “Our offense has always been high power.”

“I like to see that under 10. What we have to be focused on is playing defense and doing a better job of hitting stops,” the coach added about the goals conceded. “Offensively, I think Jack played very well and did a great job around the goals he had.”

The Engineers struggled with passing early on, turning the ball over five times in the first quarter. The Crimson capitalized with two crosses and tap-ins by Peabody, and continued to pepper MIT’s goal with shots, building an early 5-2 lead.

The visiting team started to find some offensive momentum in the second quarter, making key entry passes into the middle and creating looks close to the goal – one of which led to a five-meter penalty that Sogaard-Srikrishnan denied. Using their pace to their advantage, the Engineers closed the gap to 5-4 after finding junior attacker Derek Schaffer open on the right wing.

Sogaard-Srikrishnan adapted quickly, however, denying MIT’s next transition opportunity by swimming off his line to make the steal. Harvard was unable to extend its lead, however, despite three key blocks by captain attacker Jacob Tsotadze.

Both teams found offensive success in the third quarter, tallying ten total goals. The Crimson continued to feed Burghardt on the inside, while pressing the Engineers high up on the perimeter. Harvard’s lead fluctuated between three and four for the majority of the quarter, as it utilized its pace once again to create an easy look for Burghardt and draw an exclusion. Slutzky got an uncontested shot from the wing that extended the score at the end of the quarter to 15-10.

Burghardt continued his dominance inside in the fourth quarter as Harvard continued to look effortless on offense, unfazed by MIT’s defensive pressure. Carrington, Tsodatze, Slutzsky, and sophomore attacker Emil Sogaard-Srikrishnan all added to the Crimson’s offensive avalanche in the fourth as well.

Meanwhile, the Engineers struggled to maintain the offensive success they found in the third quarter. Harvard continued to force turnovers through steals by Slutzsky and senior utility Mason Cruz-Abrams, resulting in the eventual 21-11 win.

The Crimson will close its final weekend of conference play with a three-game homestand, beginning with No. 6 Princeton — which has won five straight NWPC championships — on Saturday at noon. It will then play Iona later in the afternoon, followed by another match against Long Island on Sunday at 10 a.m. EDT.

“Princeton is number six in the country for a reason. They’re very good. They’re very talented inside out,” Minnis said. “They get really good goalkeeping. They’re well coached.”

“The recipe is pretty simple when you’re playing. We have to keep them under 10. We have to keep our turnovers under 10,” he added. “We’ve got to be probably 60 percent, 65 percent on our six-on-five, and we’ve got to keep that five-man under 50 percent.”

—Staff writer Uy B. Pham can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at ubp.88. Follow him on X @uybpham.