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Women’s water polo is on the rise—at Harvard, on the east coast, in the U.S. and in the world. This year, the Harvard women’s water polo team finished with a 24-10 record, recorded nine wins against top-25 teams, and from March 23rd through April 6th, was ranked No. 13 according to CWPA rankings, its highest ranking ever.

Introduced in 1900, men’s water polo was the first modern Olympic team sport. However, it took 100 years for women’s water polo to reach that same status. Women’s water polo was first introduced at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

Unlike lacrosse where men and women play with different rules and contact is limited and penalized for women, men and women abide by all the same rules in water polo. Furthermore, because of the full body suits, women are able to play a more physical variation of the game.

“The women have the full suit so there’s much more to grab and hold onto,” the Friends of Harvard Water Polo Head Coach, Ted Minnis, explained.

Although many water polo players enter the sport with a swimming background, water polo is very much a physical, contact sport.

“I feel like water polo is a mix of basketball, handball, and swimming,”freshman attacker Kristen Hong said. “The fluidity of the game is very similar to that of basketball.”

The increase in women’s water polo can be largely attributed to Title IX.

“Title IX has done a very good job of growing the sport of water polo in the U.S. and as a women’s team we’ve medaled in every Olympics,” Minnis said. “In 2012 we won the gold medal, and we’re favored to win it again this year.”

Despite its success over the last two decades on the international scale, U.S. women’s water polo has traditionally been isolated to just California.

Since the NCAA women’s water polo championship was founded in 2001, only Stanford, USC and UCLA have brought home victories. No non-California school has ever participated in the Championship game or won the consolation game.

However, at the age group level, water-polo is expanding rapidly, and at the collegiate level, players are looking at strong programs, such as Harvard, that are located all around the country.

“At the age-group level you’re starting to see pockets growing outside California,” Minnis said. “Florida has a good pocket, Connecticut, Texas, Pennsylvania, Michigan. It’s great to see.”

In the past six years, Harvard has transformed both its men’s and women’s water polo programs with both teams finishing the year having achieved top-13 rankings this season and completing back-to-back 20-win seasons.

A key to the Crimson’s success has been recruiting top-talent and having athletes who are motivated to work hard and lead.

“We’ve done a good job of changing what the perception out in the water polo world is about Harvard,” Minnis said. “Six years ago, I think most kids thought Princeton or Brown were the options to play in the Ivy League and not come to Harvard, and and we’ve changed that perception.”

Two of the graduating seniors were named All-Americans, proof of the hard work they’ve put in over the past four years and the talent they brought to the program.

“I think that getting the talent here was the first step of really changing what’s going on out there,” Minnis said. “Then, our culture is that these kids come in and they train really hard and do a good job in the classroom, too.”

The spread of women’s water polo throughout the U.S. has impacted the recruiting process for high school student-athletes, too.

“Many kids are finding now that if they’re not going to be a professional water polo player and make a living off it, education is very important,” Minnis said. “I think you see a lot of kids now who are willing to leave California and not go to the typical big four schools.”

Hong, who hails from Orinda, Calif., is one such athlete. Recently named the team Rookie of the Year after having been the CWPA Division I/II Rookie of the Week five times this season, Hong posted a record breaking season, matching the single-season goal record with 80 scores and 21 multi-goal efforts and posted a team-best 45 steals.

“I really wanted to come to a school where I could be a student-athlete and where academics had a high priority placed upon them,” Hong said. “Harvard athletics are so unique in the fact that classes come first but we can still be part of a very competitive D1 program.”

Next season, the Crimson will be welcoming two more southern California standouts as well as adding some geographic diversity to its roster with players from Florida and Quebec.

A highlight for the team this season was training and competing in Italy over J-term.

“In Eastern Europe—Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Hungry—it’s like their national sport. It’s like watching basketball,” Minnis said. “So we went to Italy with our women in January and the European Championships were going on and it was on television every night. So we’d sit it on our hotel rooms and be able to watch games and it’s a pretty big deal over there so it was really cool to see that.”

“Not only did the trip allow us to start training a bit earlier than we normally would and exposed us to different types of playing styles that we were forced to adapt to and could use to improve ourselves, but most importantly the trip was filled with so many memories that helped us bond, which makes us a well functioning unit in the water,” Hong added.

Looking ahead to next season, the Harvard women’s water polo team is looking to welcome four new athletes and furthering its success.

“Our goals for next year are to build off the success we had this year and hopefully win a championship,” Minnis said. “We want to continue to be leaders in the pool, in the classroom and in the community.”

—Crimson staff writer Rena Simkowitz can be reached at rsimkowitz@college.harvard.edu.