The Harvard women’s water polo team squared off against Dartmouth yesterday in a strange and foreign environment.

Home.

Competing in its final game of the non-tournament season, the Crimson (9-14) cut through the waters of Blodgett pool for the first time this season, holding off the Big Green 8–3 in its home debut.

Harvard had previously played 23 consecutive road games to open the season.

“It was really great to look up in the stands and see a big group of fans cheering us on and supporting the team,” freshman goaltender Lydia Gardner said.

Harvard took the initiative early, pinning Dartmouth in front of its own goal for the majority of the first quarter. The smothering defense paid off.

Sophomore Teresa Codini scored the game’s first goal off a beautiful give-and-go. Cutting under the arm of her mark, sweeping the ball away and heading straight for goal, Codini received a pass directly in front of the net and buried the shot to give the Crimson the early lead.

Maintaining constant pressure, Harvard hit the post four more times in the period before finding the goal once more. In all, the Crimson would shake the woodwork on seven other occasions, dominating the first half of play.

Harvard moved with ease from end to end, its fluid play driving both the offense and defense.

Harvard extended its lead to 3-0 when Codini took a Gardner feed and skipped a shot off the water and ito the bottom right corner of the goal.

On the other side of the ball, Harvard thwarted Dartmouth’s efforts at counterattack, returning to the defensive end quickly to challenge any advance.

Such great success on defense was a significant improvement over the squad’s last outing, when Brown exploited a tired Harvard team and scored several goals off the break.

“I think that in the past week, since our difficult loss against Brown, we’ve been working a lot on defense and getting the counterattack,” sophomore Stephanie Lee said. “We were having a lot of people crash back to set which allowed for a lot of steals and counterattacks.”

Stifling the Dartmouth attack, the Crimson defenders allowed no shots from inside positions, and with Gardner standing firm, no shots threatened Harvard’s lead in the half.

“We ran just a tight press defense, which was pretty effective in the first half,” Gardner said. “We’ve been working on that in practice.”

Adding one more goal as the second quarter drew to a close, the Crimson led by four heading into halftime.

The Big Green exploded out of the gate to start the second half, coming out on the attack early and heading straight for Harvard’s goal.

Dartmouth finally got on the board by drawing an off-the-ball foul in front of the Crimson goal as the two squads sprinted towards the other end. Quickly taking possession Dartmouth found the back of the net before Harvard returned to a set defense.

The Big Green continued its attempt to mount a comeback, winning a kickout—a brief man advantage—with 4:30 remaining in the third quarter and scoring almost instantly, capitalizing before the penalized swimmer even made her way outside of the playing area.

“I think that they scored most of their goals in man-up situations,” Gardner said. “I guess our defense just got frustrated or confused.”

Complicating matters for the Crimson, Dartmouth had stepped up its defensive effort, pushing Harvard’s swimmers further away from the goal mouth than they had previously been.

Before the third quarter came to an end, the margin between the two squads was a single goal. With all the momentum, the Big Green appeared poised to seize control of the game entirely.

Picking up where it left off, Dartmouth came out firing to start the fourth, threatening to draw level.

But the Crimson weathered the storm behind the stellar goaltending of junior Elana Miller, who had entered at halftime, and quickly blew the game wide open.

Codini added two more to her scoring tally, her last goal occuring in a one on one as she hurled the ball past both the defender and keeper to increase the lead to four.

Co-captain Tiana Peterson also scored once and freshman Arin Keyser’s goal, with a defender draped over back with a minute to go, clinched the victory.

The Harvard women’s water polo team next returns to action in its final tournament of the season,—the Eastern Championships—held April 25-27 at Blodgett Pool.

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu