The Harvard women’s water polo team steam-rolled through the competition at the Northeastern Championships before falling to No. 20 Brown 9-2 in the title game on Sunday in Utica, N.Y.

The Crimson (17-12) defeated Utica College 18-1 in the first game of pool play on Saturday. Harvard won its bracket by defeating Marist 15-1 later that evening.

On Sunday, Harvard took on the second place finisher from the other pool, Connecticut College. The Crimson defeated the Camels 11-5, earning a spot in the title game against Brown.

Harvard will take its 3-1 finish in the Northeastern Championships into next weekend’s Eastern Championships, where it will be seeded 10th and will face Iona in the first game on Friday.

BROWN 9, HARVARD 2

The Crimson had taken the two teams’ previous meeting 5-4 and had held the Bears to only eight goals in their last two contests.

Brown (17-7) had no intention of being contained by Harvard’s defense in this contest, as the Bears scored three quick goals to set up a fast-paced tempo.

Harvard sophomore two-meter Molly Mehaffey and junior two-meter Teresa Codini each tallied goals to pull the Crimson back to within one, 3-2.

But the Bears senior goaltender Keira Heggie pitched a shutout the rest of the way, recording eight saves for the contest while only giving up those two first quarter goals.

With the defense clamping down hard on the Crimson, the Brown offense—which scored 53 goals in the four game tournament—came alive, adding two goals in the second and three in the third to put Harvard away en route to the 9-2 victory.

“It sounds like we got our hats handed to us, but it wasn’t until the end of the third quarter the game began to get away from us,” Russell said.

The Bears had nine 6-on-5 advantages in the game and capitalized on five of them.

“They had twice as many 6-on-5’s as in the last matchup and a team that lives on offense loves those types of advantages,” Harvard coach Scott Russell said.

“The referees were anxious to ref a close game, and I think because of that we knew more calls would be made and they were,” sophomore driver Sarah Kennifer said. “Sadly, more of them seemed to go against us.”

Crimson co-captain Liz Anderson sat out most of Sunday after getting banged up in competition on Saturday.