The Harvard women’s water polo team squared off against Dartmouth yesterday in a strange and foreign environment.

Home.

Competing in its final game of the non-tournament season, the Crimson (9-14) cut through the waters of Blodgett pool for the first time this season, holding off the Big Green 8–3 in its home debut.

Harvard had previously played 23 consecutive road games to open the season.

“It was really great to look up in the stands and see a big group of fans cheering us on and supporting the team,” freshman goaltender Lydia Gardner said.

Harvard took the initiative early, pinning Dartmouth in front of its own goal for the majority of the first quarter. The smothering defense paid off.

Sophomore Teresa Codini scored the game’s first goal off a beautiful give-and-go. Cutting under the arm of her mark, sweeping the ball away and heading straight for goal, Codini received a pass directly in front of the net and buried the shot to give the Crimson the early lead.

Maintaining constant pressure, Harvard hit the post four more times in the period before finding the goal once more. In all, the Crimson would shake the woodwork on seven other occasions, dominating the first half of play.

Harvard moved with ease from end to end, its fluid play driving both the offense and defense.

Harvard extended its lead to 3-0 when Codini took a Gardner feed and skipped a shot off the water and ito the bottom right corner of the goal.

On the other side of the ball, Harvard thwarted Dartmouth’s efforts at counterattack, returning to the defensive end quickly to challenge any advance.

Such great success on defense was a significant improvement over the squad’s last outing, when Brown exploited a tired Harvard team and scored several goals off the break.

“I think that in the past week, since our difficult loss against Brown, we’ve been working a lot on defense and getting the counterattack,” sophomore Stephanie Lee said. “We were having a lot of people crash back to set which allowed for a lot of steals and counterattacks.”

Stifling the Dartmouth attack, the Crimson defenders allowed no shots from inside positions, and with Gardner standing firm, no shots threatened Harvard’s lead in the half.

“We ran just a tight press defense, which was pretty effective in the first half,” Gardner said. “We’ve been working on that in practice.”