No. 18 Harvard Men’s Water Polo Drops First Tournament Against Three Top Ranked Opponents

No. 18 Harvard men’s water polo (2-5) kicked off its road slate this season at the Aggie Classic in Davis, Calif., this past weekend, dropping three games against top-10 Northern California opposition.

The Crimson scored its lowest total goals in a game — seven against No. 4 California (4-0) and eight against No. 11 San Jose State (1-1) — since a 10-8 loss to the Spartans in October 2024. Harvard struck back in its final match against the tournament host, No. 6 UC Davis (7-2), closing an initial six-goal deficit to two before falling 17-13 on Sunday.

Freshman attacker Clay Carrington led the Crimson’s scoring this weekend and accounted for nearly a third of its goals with nine total, including converting five against the Aggies. Eight players split the other 19 goals, led by senior utility Jack Burghardt and junior defender Tyler Hogan.

In net, freshman Jonas Ransford secured 16 saves across two-and-a-half games, including 10 saves and two steals against UC Davis. Senior goalie Oliver Price finished with two saves during the tournament.

“We played three top-10 teams in the country, and I thought we did some really good things,” head coach Ted Minnis said. “Consistency is going to be something that we’re really focusing on and putting together four quarters consistently.”

“We can’t make excuses for things we can’t control, but I really thought that the guys battled and they stuck together, and we got a lot out of coming out of California. That’s going to help us moving forward,” he added.

No. 4 California 16, Harvard 7

Harvard trailed by only three goals at halftime, but the Golden Bears outscored the Crimson nine goals to three over the final half. The result marked the visitors’ lowest offensive output in several seasons, last falling 8-5 to Princeton in a low-scoring Northeast Water Polo Championship affair in 2023.

Cal took advantage of a power play in the opening minute and converted on two successive possessions for a 2-0 lead — though Carrington and Burghardt scored two in a minute to tie the game.

Reopening their lead, the Golden Bears went on a 3-0 run for the rest of the quarter. Their final goal with nine seconds remaining was matched just five seconds later, as junior attacker Lukas Peabody slowed the host’s momentum and scored with two seconds left, closing Harvard’s deficit to two.

The second quarter was relatively quiet offensively, with the teams exchanging a goal in the final two minutes.

Harvard and Cal had further chances on several power plays due to exclusions throughout the third quarter, but the deficit only grew for the Crimson. Burghardt opened the scoring two minutes in, but a three-goal run extended the Golden Bears’ advantage to 10-5.

Cal’s offensive streak continued through the fourth — launching a four-goal run through the first four minutes. Hogan scored twice more in the final three minutes, but each goal was matched in quick succession by an opposing conversion to finish the game at 16-7.

No. 11 San Jose State 14, Harvard 8

For the majority of the match, Harvard kept its second game against San Jose close, trailing by no more than two goals until the final two minutes of the third quarter.

However, a four-goal final frame helped the Spartans secure their 14-8 win.

Offensively, Carrington led Harvard’s scoring with a hat-trick, followed by four of the other five goalscorers converting for their first goals of the weekend.

Senior attacker Vilas Sogaard-Srikrishnan took advantage of a power play for the Crimson’s first goal a minute in. Though the Spartans responded with a 3-0 run, Harvard sophomore attacker Connor Kim closed the deficit to one.

Carrington evened the score in the start of the second quarter, but San Jose went on another 3-0 run to build their lead. Despite three exclusions against the Spartans, the Crimson didn’t convert until the final three minutes — provided by a pair of goals from Hogan and sophomore attacker Emil Sogaard-Srikrishnan.

San Jose repeated a similar pattern in the third quarter. Three goals from the Spartans marked its third three-goal run of the quarter despite racking up another three exclusions.

“We have to be consistent with getting stops. We’ve got to be consistent with not trading goals, we’ve got to be consistent with not making multiple turnovers in a quarter,” Minnis said. “We’ve got to be consistent with finishing on six on five and taking the opportunities that are given to us.”

“Overall, that consistency in every phase of the game is what we’re going to have to really focus on, and the takeaways are that. We went back and we watched the film, and we know where we can be more consistent and what that preparation needs to look like,” the coach added.

Carrington completed his hat trick in the third quarter to keep Harvard within striking distance for a recovery at 10-7.

Unfortunately for the Crimson, the deficit only grew to finish the fourth quarter. Two pairs of goals from San Jose, sandwiching a goal from Harvard freshman center Geoff Slutzky with six minutes remaining, proved enough for the Spartans to thwart the visiting team.

No. 6 UC Davis 17, Harvard 13

The Crimson trailed by as much as six goals mid-way through the third quarter, but an offensive streak helped the East Coast team bring the score to 13-11 early in the fourth quarter.

With two minutes remaining, Harvard’s Carrington and UC Davis traded another set of goals, leaving the score at 14-12.

The Aggies went on a 3-0 run through the ensuing possessions, and Hogan’s consolation goal in the final 30 seconds wasn’t enough for the Crimson to trim the deficit, falling 17-13 to close out its weekend.

“As our third game of the weekend, we learned a lot throughout the week that weekend playing against heavy presses and being able to move the ball,” Minnis said. “I just thought we were getting better as the weekend went along at each game and that was the big difference.”

For the second straight match, Carrington led the Crimson in scoring, tallying five goals and two assists. The freshman was followed by Burghardt’s hat trick and senior attacker Jacob Tsotadze’s two, alongside Sogaard-Srikrishnan securing a hat trick of assists.

Harvard kept the game close in the first quarter, trailing by only one goal. The offensive momentum from both teams was concentrated on the beginning and ending of the quarter, and the Aggies jumped to an early two-goal run until Burghardt responded.

Burghardt scored another goal during the dying minutes, and Peabody’s conversion in the final second wrapped up the quarter for the Crimson.

UC Davis exchanged a penalty shot with Harvard’s power play conversion to begin the second quarter. An ensuing three goals from the Aggies encapsulated the final four minutes, though it was temporarily disturbed as Carrington finished a penalty shot of his own.

Three goals in three minutes propelled the host to a 12-6 lead to start the third quarter. Tsodatze responded with two goals, and a power-play conversion from Kim brought the gap down to four goals.

Carrington and Tsodatze opened the scoring in quick succession at the five-minute mark, but Davis scored four times in the final three minutes — holding onto its late advantage for an eventual 17-13 victory.

Harvard will return to the East Coast this weekend to Princeton, N.J. and face off against No. 17 Santa Clara University (3-2) and the Naval Academy (5-0), as well as a rematch against San Jose State.

The Princeton Invitation will be the team’s second-to-last weekend of nonconference matches before it opens NWPC play on October 3 against Princeton — which won the championship after beating the Crimson in the final.

“We’re just sticking to the process,” Minnis said. “It’s not about how we’re playing in September. It’s how we’re playing in November. We’re going to keep getting better, hopefully, learning lessons, and not making the same mistakes again.”

“It’s going to be a good weekend for us to work on that consistency and hopefully putting four quarters together, 12 quarters together, and coming out with some wins,” he added.

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