Men's Water Polo Journeys West, Wins Three of Five Against Top Competition

By Y. Kit Wu, Contributing Writer October 27, 2013

The final day of competition in California opened with the Crimson facing No. 11 UC Davis. Apart from Concordia, the Aggies were the highest-ranked ranked team to participate in the Rodeo Tournament.

In contrast to the match-up against Cal Baptist, in which Harvard opened with a lead and held it throughout, the Crimson spent the majority of the game either behind or tied with its opponents, excepting a few minutes in the first half. It wasn’t until the beginning of the second period that it pulled up to the performance of the Aggies.

But once Zepfel scored the first goal for Harvard in the opening moments of the third quarter, the competition was neck-to-neck. Every point scored by either Harvard or Davis was met with a score from the opposing team, and the two sides were tied four different times in that quarter alone. At the beginning of the fourth, the score was notched at 10.

In the end, Harrison and Colton produced. Scoring two goals apiece, Harrison and Colton helped the Crimson pull away while Aggie sophomore Philip Bates scored the lone goal for the opposing side. The game finished with Harvard on top, 14-11.

“One thing…is that we should play with anyone,” Harrison said. “And when we went out there to play that game, we went out with that mindset. We didn’t let them battle us and we continued to fight back to accomplish the victory in that game because we never gave up.”

The upset victory against Davis saw a balanced performance from the Harvard squad. A total of seven members from the Crimson managed to score, with Harrison leading the way with four points.

HARVARD 7, FRESNO PACIFIC 6

Four hours after the victory against UC Davis, the Crimson fashioned a solid first-half performance to secure its final victory before returning to the East Coast.

After scoring first, Harvard ran away to a halftime score of 5-1. Only two additional points by Zepfel and Colton in the third frame were needed to fend off a late surge by Fresno Pacific.

“We competed at a very high level,” McCowan said. “We left 3-2, and that was something Harvard [hadn’t been able to] say for a long time. We’re really proud [of] that.”