The Harvard men's water polo team ended its season this weekend on a winning note, despite failing to advance further in postseason play.

The top eight teams in the Northeast traveled to Blodgett Pool for the two-day Northern Division Tournament, the qualifier for the Eastern Coast Athletic Conference (ECAC) Tournament.

The top four finishers in the tournament advance to the next round of postseason play, and by the tournament format, every first-round winner advances.

The Crimson (12-19, 5-6 CWPA) entered the weekend hoping to salvage a disappointing season with a top-four finish and a trip to ECACs, but Harvard finished just out of the money, in fifth place.

In its opening round match, eighth seeded Harvard faced off against top seed Queens College (22-6) confident that it could pull off the upset.

"Our expectation was to beat Queens in the first round," senior Chris Tilghman said. "We match up well against them, and we felt that we could win." QUEENS  13 HARVARD  4 BOSTON COLLEGE  6 HARVARD  10 IONA  6 HARVARD  9

Despite being outmatched on paper, Harvard hung tough with Queens, trailing at the half by a score of only 5-3. But the second half was a different story altogether, as the Royals outscored the Crimson 8-1 after the intermission, winning the contest 13-4.

Captain Mike Zimmerman netted all four goals for Harvard in the defeat, but it wasn't enough as the Crimson entered the loser's bracket, with its chances of advancing to ECAC's eliminated.

In the second round, Harvard took on Boston College (10-2)--losers of their first round match to Brown, 12-7--as it tried to regroup from its disappointing first-round loss.

"We were down a bit after the game," Tilghman said. "But this was the most mature team I've seen in tow years, and we were able to put it together for the final two games."

In the early going things did not look good for the crimson. The Eagles quickly jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period, and at he half Harvard found itself down 5-2.

But behind the play of sophomore Jeremy Katz and Zimmerman--who netted five and two goals in the game, respectively--the Crimson rallied for six goals in the third period and two in the fourth, as it won 10-6.

The win moved Harvard into the fifth place game against Iona (8-15) who had lost their first-round match to the University of Massachusetts and won their second-round match against Fordham.

Harvard came out strong in its final match of the year. Katz opened the scoring for the Crimson with two early goals. The Gaels would not back down, however, as they answered Katz's goals with two of their own--the second a two-point shot--as they took a 3-2 lead. But with less than a minute left in the period, Zimmerman netted a power-play goal, knotting the contest at 3-3.

Then in the second, Harvard took control of the match . Less than a minute into the period, senior Tom Chalberg rifled a shot from the left side of the net, giving the Crimson the lead,. Katz followed with two more goals, and Harvard took a 6-3 lead into the half.

Iona closed to 6-4 with a goal early in the third, but Katz answered with his fifth and final goal of the game to give Harvard a three-goal lead after three.

In the final period, Iona mounted a finalcharge, as it narrowed the lead to 7-6. ButChalberg then gave the Crimson some breathing roomwith his second goal, making the score 8-6.

With a minute left in the contest Iona attackedthe Harvard defense aggressively, creating severalscoring opportunities. But it was all for not, asthree of the Gaels' shots hit the post. Then witheight seconds left, senior Chris Tilghman closedout the scoring with his first goal of thetourney, giving Harvard a 9-6 victory and itsfifth-place finish.

Although it did not advance to the ECACtournament, Harvard was not completelydisappointed with its results. Despite sufferingthrough a very disappointing season, it playedwell, losing only to a superior Queens Collegeteam that finished second in the tournament toUMass.

"It's great to end the season off with somewins," Tilghman said. "We are really happy thatwe've played so well the last few weeks. We havejust kept on improving, and it's nice to play sosolidly all the way."

The Crimson will be graduating seniorsZimmerman, Chalberg, Tilghman and Sid Burke, butwith starters Dror Bar-Ziv and Katz, as well asfirst-year coach Jim Floerchinger returning, thefuture looks bright for Harvard.

"This team has a really strong freshman class,as well as some great starters coming back,"Tilghman said. "And [Floerchinger] is a greatcoach with a real commitment to making this teamexcellent. There is no doubt that they'll be goodnext year.