Advertisement

Poloists Cop League Crown

In a contest in which they were rarely tested, the Harvard water polo team rolled on to win the 1973 New England Round-Robin Tournament. The Crimson club sport team trounced all their varsity league opponents with relative ease last weekend in Brown's new Olympic-size pool.

Harvard, seeded third after Northeastern and Brown, drew Brown in the first match of the tourney.

In a game marred by fouls, Harvard committed 20 team violations. The penalties enabled Brown to rally after a 5-0 deficit. The Bruins scored three times on penalty shots for Crimson fouls inside the Harvard goal area.

"I kept the first string in too long," captain Phil Jonckheer said after the match. "We tired toward the end and barely held on."

The Crimson was led by Jonckheer's three goals and the presence of returning goalie Doug Forrester, a high school All-American, who batted away potential scorers all night.

Advertisement

Harvard withstood a last-minute surge of the Bruins poloists to win, 6-5.

In its second game, the top-seeded Northeastern team scared the Crimson into action, forcing it to respond with its finest game of the year.

Northeastern stayed tight, 3-2, until the third quarter when the Crimson resumed its explosive form with two quick goals, one of which was scored by Peter Kellog who tallied a hat-trick for the game.

Inspired

With the score 5-2, Northeastern was unable to dissolve an inspired Harvard defense, and finally succumbed, 6-3. With this win Harvard avenged its only loss of the season to the Huskies two weeks ago.

"It was our best quarter," Jonckheer said afterwards. "Why, it was our best game. Whereas the Brown game made us appear sloppy and overly physical, we jelled against Northeastern. With Peter Hursh anchoring the defense, Fred Mitchell patrolling the middle, and our outstanding front-line shooters, we're finally playing as a unit."

Harvard took their 10-1 record against the only remaining team in the round robin tourney, MIT. Despite the loss of foundation men Peter Kellog and Fred Mitchell, the Crimson brutalized the Engineers, 13-3. The final game saw the team's leading scorer, freshman Wes Raffel, score seven times.

Advertisement