PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The Harvard University men’s water polo team split a pair of games at Brown University’s Bruno Classic as the Crimson dropped a buzzer-beater loss to Concordia University-Irvine, 19-18, and came back to outlast DivisionIII No. 3-ranked Johns Hopkins University, 17-13, to snap a seven-game losing streak.
The Crimson moved to 3-9 on the season.
Concordia never trailed against the Crimson thanks to scoring the first two goals of the morning and leading by as many as four at 9-5. Harvard came back to tie the game on five occasions, including as late as 18-all. However, the Golden Eagles called timeout with 2.8 seconds remaining and got the game-winning from Levi Riegelman as time expired.
CUI was led in scoring by Joao Goncalves and Hugo Wouters with five apiece. Dean Strauser keyed Harvard with four goals.
Strauser got Harvard on the board with a penalty shot to trim into Concordia’s initial lead at 2-1.
The Golden Eagles had an answer for every Crimson goal until late in the second quarter when Harvard netted back-to-back goals to trim its deficit to 9-7 at halftime.
The Crimson’s momentum carried over into the third quarter despite CUI scoring first. Harvard answered with three consecutive goals, capped by a Lukas Peabody snipe to make it 11-10.
The deficit remained at one entering the fourth quarter after Strauser scored his third goal of the game.
Early in the fourth quarter, Jonas Ransford came up with the first of many critical saves in the final frame. An exclusion immediately followed and Harvard called timeout, looking to capitalize on the power play, but the Crimson’s shot hit the post and the Golden Eagles responded with a goal to push its lead back to two.
Jacob Tsotadze soon found the back of the net and after two more saves from Ransford, Jack Burghardt registered his second goal to tie the game at 15-all.
The two sides went back-and-forth with Peabody recording a hat trick that tied the game at 18-all with less than three seconds left before Riegelman notched the buzzer beater.
Strauser (four), Clay Carrington (three), Tyler Hogan (three), Peabody (three), Burghardt (two), Connor Kim, Geoff Slutzky and Tsotadze combined for Harvard’s 18 goals in support of a nine save effort by Ransford.
In game two, Johns Hopkins held the edge after one quarter of play despite Harvard getting out to an early lead. However, the Crimson dominated the second quarter by a 9-1 count and held the lead the rest of the way. Harvard’s lead was trimmed to one in the third quarter as the Blue Jays refused to go quietly, but the Crimson finished strong; led by Strauser for the second game in a row with a four-goal performance.
Harvard led 3-2 early before a 3-0 run by Johns Hopkins concluded the first quarter to put the Blue Jays up 5-3.
The Crimson opened the second quarter on a 4-1 run, including two goals from Strauser, and finished the frame with a 9-1 advantage to lead 12-6 entering halftime.
Harvard had to withstand a 5-0 Blue Jays’ rally on the other side of the break, but got the last goal of the third quarter to stem the tide and hold a two-score margin heading into the fourth quarter.
Burghardt (five), Strauser (four), Kim (two), Peabody (two), Bradford Dickson, Felix Pal, Emil Sogaard-Srikrishnan and Tsotadze accounted for Harvard’s 17 strikes. Oliver Price stopped seven shots to earn the win in cage.
Information courtesy Harvard University Athletics Communications
