The Fab Five: Harvard’s Top Winter Sports Teams, Week 1

Just a few weeks into the winter sports season, three teams are undefeated and two are nationally ranked. If this is a taste of what is to come, we’ve got an exciting winter ahead of us.

5. Women’s Ice Hockey

The Crimson is 6-4 and ended a three game losing streak by defeating Dartmouth, 2-1, yesterday. The team is 6-2 in conference play and will battle Providence on Dec. 8.

4. Pool Powerhouses

The women’s swimming and diving team dominated Dartmouth and Cornell, winning 12 of 16 matches against the (not so) Big Green and (even less so) Big Red in its first action of the year. The men’s team beat the same two schools in dual meet action and recently took fifth place at the prestigious Nike Cup hosted by UNC.

3. Women’s Fencing

At the Garret Open, hosted by Penn State, the women’s fencing team won two gold medals and one bronze. The medals came in the foil, epee, and saber events, which all sound equally scary.

2. Men’s Basketball

Crimson men’s basketball players were not able to return home for the Thanksgiving break, but don’t pity them. Instead, the team traveled to the Bahamas and won the Battle 4 Atlantis. The team beat No. 20 Florida State and avoided UConn, who lost on the opposite side of the bracket. Harvard will play the No. 8 Huskies on Dec. 8 in what could potentially slide the Crimson into the national top 25 rankings.

1. Squashopolies

I’m not exactly sure how many colleges have squash teams, but national top five rankings for both the (No. 5) men and (No. 1) women are impressive in my book. The teams are a combined 7-0 and have outscored opponents 58-5. You can’t perform much better than that.