Last week, the University of Massachusetts announced that it will reduce its number of intercollegiate sports by seven next year—from 29 to 22—due to recent budget cuts. Among the teams marked for elimination are men’s and women’s water polo, men’s gymnastics and women’s volleyball.

From a Harvard sports standpoint, the axing of the water polo teams will have the greatest impact. Both the Crimson men’s and women’s squads have improved substantially over the past three years, but UMass—its rival in the Collegiate Water Polo Association’s Northern Division—has always presented a stiff challenge to Harvard’s postseason prospects.

Dating back to the 1998 season, the Minutewomen have defeated Harvard in 15 straight games, most recently with a 7-6 double overtime win on Mar. 9. The Harvard men’s team, meanwhile, snapped a multiyear losing streak of its own against UMass this past year in the third-place game of the Northern Division Championship.

“I have complete sympathy for everyone involved,” Harvard Coach Jim Floerchinger said. “It’s a tragedy for our sport. When something like that happens in your sport, you feel the loss.”

In a sport in which the nation’s perennial top ten teams are from California, UMass had been one of the few eastern teams to leave a lasting impression. In 1993, the men’s team became the first eastern team to defeat a West Coast team at the NCAA Championships, finishing in sixth place overall. The tournament field has since been reduced to four teams with one East Coast representative, and UMass has filled that Final Four slot three of the past four years.

“U.S. water polo has, as a goal, the East Coast schools earning the respect and interest of East Coast spectators and becoming more competitive with the West Coast schools,” Harvard men’s co-captain Mike Crosby wrote in an e-mail. “This goal becomes more difficult to achieve when schools like Villanova, Boston College and now UMass drop their varsity programs.”

Villanova and B.C.’s teams each lost funding in the past two seasons, and currently only carry club teams.

The women’s team had been a Top-20 team in each of the past five years.

“I am baffled that they would cut the water polo team because they are consistently one of the top 10 teams in the nation, including the UC schools,” junior women’s team member Jane Humphries said.

The elimination of UMass will likely create an easier road to the Final Four for future Harvard teams. UMass had been one of a small number of Eastern schools—including Princeton, St. Francis (NY) and Queens College that were ranked in the top 20.

“There was only one other team ahead of us this year, so in the future we won’t have to worry about the strength of UMass preventing us from making the Final Four,” co-captain Gresham Bayne said. “There are some great players on that team, and I guarantee they are starting to look into how to transfer somewhere else this week.”

But Floerchinger said that UMass’ loss hurts Harvard more than it helps it.

“You always want the best competition,” Floerchinger said. “Yeah, it’s one less quality game on the schedule, but you want as many quality games as possible. You don’t want someone to look at us and say that we’re coming out of a wimpy conference. And it’s never a cause for celebration when you have kids with a great program who can’t play anymore.”

The team downsizing comes in response to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ decision to cut funds to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst by $17.1 million this year—part of a $28.5 million budget cut burden thrust upon UMass’ five campuses during the state’s current economic crisis.

According to UMass Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations Nick Joos, the athletic department considered a number of factors when deciding which teams would be eliminated.