The last time the No. 20 Harvard men's water polo team faced No. 13 Navy, the Crimson came away with its biggest win of the season, a 6-5 upset that ranked with the greatest victories in the program's history. It sparked an 11-game winning streak that propelled the Crimson to its best regular season record in years and, more importantly, made the team believe it could do it again.

On Saturday, Navy got revenge when it counted.

The Midshipmen effectively ended Harvard's season by defeating the Crimson, 15-5, in the first round of the Collegiate Water Polo Association's Eastern Championships.

Navy went on to win the meet and clinch an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament with wins against No. 12 UMass and No. 11 St. Francis.

With the loss, the Crimson (23-9) fell out of contention early and was reduced to playing losers' bracket games for the remainder of the weekend.

In the other games, Harvard narrowly defeated Bucknell and then lost a close game to Princeton to finish the tournament in sixth place.

"Sixth at Easterns is a good place to be, since we haven't been there before," junior Mike Crosby said. "The win was nice, but now our goal is to be in a position where we can be at least in the top four next year."

Navy 15, Harvard 5