When the Harvard men’s water polo team traveled to New London, Conn., to face its last two regular season competitors, it wasn’t focused on playing its best games of the season.

All the Crimson wanted to do was win and come home.

And win it did. With a 10-7 victory over Fordham and an 11-9 defeat of Iona, this year’s squad swam into its own place in Harvard history.

The wins move the Crimson (9-7) to 6-1 in the Northern Division, guaranteeing the team a second-place finish behind St. Francis. In all water polo seasons past, Harvard has never done better.

When the Crimson goes to the Northern Championships in two weeks, it will now have a much weaker opponent in the first round. Though Harvard will have to play St. Francis—whom it lost to earlier in the season—to win Northerns, the players are more excited about placing high enough in the tournament to get to the Eastern Championships.

“Our main goal was to make it Easterns,” co-captain Rick Offsay said. “We made that as easy as possible.”

Harvard has won its last five contests against teams in the Northern Division, defeating tough opponents such as MIT, Brown and Iona.

HARVARD 10, FORDHAM 7

With junior goalie Robbie Burmeister sidelined due to an injury, sophomore Eric Byrd had to step into the cage for the Crimson, starting his first game of the season.

“He played pretty well for his first complete game,” sophomore John Voith said. “We tried to step up the defense on the perimeter to help him out.”

Harvard jumped out to an early 8-2 lead, sparked by a strong offensive effort. The lead gave the Crimson a chance to get more teammates playing time and scoring opportunities.

Offsay, senior co-captain Mike Gerrity, junior Andrei Boros and sophomore Mike Garcia each netted two goals. Senior Evan Kaseguma and freshman Brian Kuczynski scored the other two goals for Harvard.

“Eric was strong, especially in the first half,” Offsay said. “He did a good job of coordinating the defense.”

Though the Rams trailed by six goals, Fordham slowly fought back and threatened Harvard by bringing the score within one. The Crimson defense, anchored by Byrd, was able to hold the Rams and ultimately take the victory.

“We took care of business and didn’t give in, which allowed us to get the win,” Offsay said.

HARVARD 11, IONA 9

Offsay, determined to get the team started off right, led Harvard to victory in its first game of the day. He scored five goals, matching his single-game high.

Though Offsay was double- and triple-teamed by the Gaels, they were unable to contain him offensively.

When Offsay was unable to find the goal, his teammates aided him in driving the ball into the net.

Voith added two goals, while Gerrity, Garcia, senior John Lynch and freshman Christopher Ludwick were able to tally one a piece.

Lynch and Voith also made the intangible contributions in order to steer the Crimson to victory. Lynch helped drive the offense by making crisp passes to his teammates to help them knock the ball in the goal, while Voith played solid defense to hold Iona down.

Burmeister benefitted the help from his teammates, as he was still trying to recover from a blow to the head he took on a shot in practice the day before. Despite his injury—and his inability to sit up for most of the Crimson’s second game—Burmeister stayed in the goal for Harvard against Iona.

“It wasn’t our best game,” Offsay said, “but we were able to get the job done. Sometimes you just have to take the win.”

The Crimson now has two weeks to work through Coach Farrar’s vigorous training plan and prepare for the Northern Championships, which will take place at Brown. Harvard went 2-5 in the Northern Division and earned only a fifth-place finish at the championships last season.

—Staff writer Megha Parekh can be reached at parekh@fas.harvard.edu.