Having had a tumultuous season thus far, the Harvard women's water polo team couldn't expect this weekend to be different.

And it wasn't.

On Friday, the Crimson traveled to Wesleyan, Conn., to take on Yale, Dartmouth, Brown and UMass in the Northeast Championships.

By the time they headed back to Cambridge yesterday afternoon, not only did they have three wins under their belt, but they also had suffered from an array of injuries, some of which were caused by overexposure to a chemically unbalanced pool.

The injuries began on Friday morning when freshman Christine Meiers broke her hand in practice. In addition to Meiers, freshman goalie Danielle McCarthy was out for the weekend with shoulder problems.

"Despite physical injuries, we feel really great mentally about this weekend," sophomore Jesse Gunderson said.

First up for Harvard was Yale. Experiencing very little difficulty, the Crimson breezed past the Bulldogs, 15-2.

"Yale is not a very strong team," Gunderson said. "We wanted to shut them out rather than run up the score. And we came close."

Harvard's focus in the Yale game, as well as for the next two games against Dartmouth and Brown, was to fine-tune its game. With their former assistant coach Rick Handt having recently taken over the reins as head coach, Harvard was concentrating on a new strategy.

"We revamped our man-up play," Gunderson said. "We used these games to work on the new adjustments."

After trouncing Yale, Harvard moved on to its next victim, Dartmouth. The Big Green could only manager a lone goal in the Crimson's 13-1 landslide.

On Sunday morning, Harvard cruised past its third Ivy opponent of the weekend, Brown.

"Brown is a fairly solid team," Gunderson said. "But we still weren't concerned about losing."

This time the score was a bit closer; Harvard won 12-7.

However, Harvard paid a price for its victory. The chlorine in the pool resulted in chemical burns and stinging eyes for many Crimson players.