Maybe what you don't know can't hurt you.
The Harvard women's water polo team didn't know what to expect from Colgate before the two teams faced off last night in the opening day of the Eastern Championships at Blodgett Pool.
After the 19-4 blowout, that has certainly changed.
"We really didn't know how good or bad they were going to be," senior Anne-Marie Sevcsik admitted after the game.
They do now.
Colgate was the New York Division champion but had not played any of the other seven teams at Easterns (which also draws from the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast Divisions).
The tournament seeded the Red Raiders fifth by default more than anything--putting them lower would be unfair, as it would place them behind a team that finished third in its division; but putting them higher was unwarranted.
Harvard was the No. 4 seed (and placed in Pool A, along with No. 1 Slippery Rock and No. 8 Princeton), so that meant that the Crimson would be the proverbial guinea pig.
The experiment was pretty much over by the second quarter. After getting out to a 5-1 lead in the first, co-captain Missy Ford took over the game, tallying five of her game-high eight goals as Harvard outscored Colgate 7-0 in the period to take a commanding lead.
The method was simple. The Crimson's swimmers were quite a bit faster than the Red Raiders', and Harvard's perimeter defense forced Colgate to make sloppy turnovers whenever it had the ball.
This would create fast-break opportunities for the Crimson, which would be exacerbated by the team's speed advantage and lead to lots of easy scores.
Put simply, most of the game consisted of some Harvard player (usually Ford) treading water in front of the Colgate goal with the ball and not a defender in sight.
"It was good that we ran the fast break a lot," Harvard coach Maureen Travers said. "Mary [Naber] had to work on that--she needed to work on controlling the ball."
Naber, also a Crimson editor, created many of these chances. A former member of the Harvard swim team, the junior captured all three of her opening sprints (quarters begin with each team racing towards the middle of the pool to get the ball), and Naber started many of the fast breaks as well.
Other than Ford, the Crimson's scorers were Sevcsik (three), Leslie Bennett (two), Naber (two), Amanda Moger (two), Olivia Denton (one) and Ingrid Anderson (one).
Defensively, Harvard did not allow the person holding the ball to get off solid passes to her teammates, which helped keep the ball away from the net.
When the Red Raiders did get on a fast break--which happened only late in the game, when the bench was in and the game was already decided--Harvard quickly doubled-and tripled-down on the breaking player.
The Raiders' only offense came in the form of long-range bombs from outside the Crimson defense. Freshman goalie Angela Munoz stopped most of these easily, letting only two in. The other Colgate goals came on a rebound putback and a fast break with 38 seconds in the game.
If there was any negative for Harvard from last night's game, it was that the avenues that the team used to win will not be open for the rest of the tournament.
Today at 10:20 a.m., Harvard plays Princeton, who is ranked lower than Colgate but is not nearly as slow; at 4:10 p.m., Harvard takes on Slippery Rock, the defending Easterns champion.
To beat those teams, the Crimson must control the ball and work its offense "normally"--that is, using the two-meter position as its crux.
"Princeton's a much faster team," Ford said. "So we're going to have to work on our set offense."
Harvard will also play one game tonight, probably against UMass or Maryland (both of whom won last night, respectively defeating Brown and Bucknell). Sunday plays host to the Finals. G: Colgate--Mawson 2, Waggoner; Harvard--Ford 8, Sevcsik 3, Naber 2, Bennett 2, Moger 2, Denton, Anderson.
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