It was sort of like the legend of Casey Jones.

There were two locomotives on the same track, destined for a collision at the end of the Eastern Tournament, which was held this weekend at Blodgett Pool.

One train was the mighty Slippery Rock State University women's water polo team, which had crusied to four easy--very easy--victories. It beat Ohio State, 16-6, Bucknell, 16-3, Queens, 17-3 and MIT, 19-6.

In the course of the action, Slippery Rock was looking like a French TGV train--the fastest in the world.

The other train was Harvard. The Crimson switched locomotives here and there on its way to the final. Most of the time, however, Harvard looked like a Japanese bullet train.

But when all the dust settled, Harvard got the worst of the impact. Slippery Rock took a 19-5 decision from the Crimson. Harvard's second-place finish in the Eastern Tournament could earn it a national tournament berth. The national championship tournament will be played in two weeks' time at Annapolis, Md.

Harvard (16-3) had come out like a house afire, as it defeated Brown, 14-5, Friday and crushed Penn State, 20-0, early Saturday.

Those two wins put the Crimson in the championship group, but it needed to beat cross-town rival MIT in its final Group B game to be ranked first.

Thanks to six Stacey Moran goals and clutch goaltending by Amy Sandler, Harvard broke open a close game in the second half and won, 11-6.

"We were psyched for this tournament so I felt I had to try my hardest," Sandler said.

The Crimson then played Bucknell to open its championship round action. Thanks to Tara Gustilo's five goals, Harvard staked a seven-goal lead against the Bison, only to see it almost slip away in the fourth quarter.

But a solid defensive effort slowed Bucknell's onslaught just enough to enable the Crimson to eke out a 10-9 win, after which it was up to Harvard to beat Slippery Rock, a team which had placed second in the nation last year.

It wasn't to be.

Slippery Rock, using the most advanced defense-to-offense transition game in the tournament, quickly built a 16-1 lead and never looked back.

"They were fast," said Tri-Captain Eileen Pratt, who swims Harvard's sprints. "Their thinking is usually two steps ahead of what was going on."

"They used all the tricks," Moran said. "There wasn't one steal technique that they didn't try. Wherever they were they played it a hundred percent."

"They're a very experienced team. They, of course, were up for the championship game," said Harvard Coach Chris Hafferty. "They're used to a higher level of play. It took us three quarters to get used to how strong they were and how fast they were."

In that fourth period, the Crimson outscored the Rockets, 4-3. It was the biggest game in many of the Harvard players' lives, and that last stanza was, according to some players, a partial victory.

"I thought they put in a big effort in the off-season and during the season," Hafferty said. "As far as I was concerned, it was the turnaround for the entire program."

It was a far cry from the Harvard showing a year ago at the Eastern tournament. The Crimson had lost three games in a row that weekend, placing it in the cellar.

"We weren't even close to winning any of those games," Hafferty said.

Even if Harvard doesn't play another game this season, it, like Casey Jones, went down with its hand on the brake.