PROVIDENCE, R.I. — 2025 Northeast Water Polo Conference (NWPC) regular season Most Valuable Player (MVP) Jack Burghardt (Jr., Manhattan Beach, Calif./Harvard-Westlake) of No. 2 seed/No. 18-ranked Harvard University made his presence felt in the postseason as he scored six times – including a trio in the second quarter to help the Crimson pull away – as his team knocked off host/No. 3 seed/No. 19 Brown University, 18-14, in the second semifinal at the 2025 Northeast Water Polo Conference (NWPC) Championship.
Courtesy the victory, Harvard (20-9) claims the program’s 20th win of the season and earns a date with No. 1 seed/No. 14 Princeton University at Noon on Sunday, November 23, for the NWPC Championship and the conference’s National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championship automatic berth at Brown’s Katherine Moran Coleman Aquatics Center. The game will mark the third meeting of the year between the two Ivy League institutions as the Tigers took down the Crimson on November 9 in Cambridge, Mass., by a 12-9 count after Harvard handled Princeton by a 13-12 score on October 5, in Princeton, N.J.
In the history of the NWPC Championship, the Crimson won the inaugural/2026 (11-7 W vs. Brown at Princeton), 2017 (12-11 W OT SD vs. Princeton at Harvard) and 2019 (8-7 W vs. Princeton at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) crowns; finished Second in 2018 (12-10 L vs. Princeton at Brown) and 2023 (8-5 L vs. Princeton at Harvard); took home Third Place in 2022 (at Brown) and 2024 (at Princeton); and claimed Fourth Place in 2021 (at Princeton). The trio of NWPC titles mark the only conference championships in men’s water polo history at Harvard as the team reached the 1972 Eastern Championship title game, but dropped the contest to institutional nemesis Yale University in the first of back-to-back titles for the Bulldogs.
The Crimson never trailed in turning back Brown (19-10) to prevent the Bears from garnering their 20th victory of the year.
A five-time Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA)/Eastern Champion (1981, 1983, 1984, 1985, 2014) and six-time runner-up (1978, 1982, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990) with prior finishes of Second (2016, 2024), Third (2017, 2019, 2021, 2023), Fourth (2018, 2022) at the NWPC Championship, Brown fell behind 40 seconds into the game as Burghardt buried a shot at 7:20 in the first quarter.
Dominik Balla (So., Szolnok, Hungary/Varga Katalin Gimnazium) leveled the damage at one-all at 6:44 by swishing a man-up strike to start a back-and-forth run by the two teams over the remainder of the first eight minutes of action. Burghardt (4:03) and Vilas Sogaard-Srikrishnan (Jr., Greenwich, Conn./Brunswick School) (2:18) notched natural goals for Harvard, while Balla (3:41) and Hugo Molnar (Fr., Szeged, Budapest/Radnoti Miklos Experimental) (17 seconds) found the cage for the Bears as the teams exited the first quarter deadlocked at three-all.
The give-and-take continued to begin the second quarter as Lukas Peabody (So., San Diego, Calif./The Bishop’s School) hurled home a penalty shot (7:19) for Harvard before Griffin Tunney (Fr., Orinda, Calif./Miramonte) answered for Brown at 6:55 with a natural marker to make it a four-all contest.
Burghardt put the Crimson back in front at 5-4 (6:30), but the Bears once again awoke from their offensive slumber to swat another ball into the twine as Balla burned Harvard once more at 6:06 to make it a five-all contest.
However, Burghardt’s second attempt at igniting a rally caught fire as the reigning league MVP punched in a score at 5:41 which was followed by a pair of tallies from Sogaard-Srikrishnan (4:44; 4:09) and a solo successful heave by Mason Hunt (Sr., Newport Beach, Calif./Newport Harbor) at 3:22 in staking the Crimson to a 9-5 margin.
Jaxson Tierney (Jr., Sierra Madre, Calif./Harvard-Westlake) stopped the run with a goal for Brown at 3:01, Burghardt deposited a man-up score (2:38), Daniel Hadar (Sr., San Anselmo, Calif./Sir Francs Drake) cashed in a six-on-five opportunity for the Bears and Hunt torqued in a natural tally with 46 seconds left in the second quarter to set the scoreboard at 11-7 in favor of the white caps entering halftime.
Brown attempted to claw its way back into the game during the third quarter as the Bears outscored the Crimson by a 5-2 count to inch within 13-12 by the conclusion of the frame.
Hadar (7:40) and Filip Josipovic (Fr., Nijmegen, Netherlands/Liceo Scientifico Ianfranconi) (6:11) commenced the rally in the opening two minutes of the third quarter to close the Bears to within a pair at 11-9. Hunt completed a hat-trick with his third goal (3:45) to put the Crimson back in front by three at 12-9 prior to William Vranesh (So., Moraga, Calif./Campolindo) (3:26) and Molnar (1:44) answering for Brown to chip Harvard’s lead down to a single score at 12-11.
Sogaard-Srikrishnan converted on a man-up chance with 1:14 left in the quarter and Tierney torched the Crimson with a penalty shot at the eight seconds mark as the teams went into the fourth quarter with Harvard clinging onto a 13-12 lead.
Burghardt attempted to provide his team some relief by scoring 27 seconds into the final eight minutes of regulation at 7:33 to widen the gap to 14-12, but Balla dunked in his third goal of the game with 6:50 on the clock to once again put the Bears within a goal at 14-13.
Hunt (4:22, man-up), Dean Strauser (So., Calabassas, Calif./Harvard-Westlake) (1:44, penalty shot) and Sogaard-Srikrishnan (1:06) provided Harvard some breathing room as the trio scored to expand a solo marker advantage into a 17-13 margin with approximately a minute to play.
The lead proved too much for Brown to overcome as Tierney (52 seconds) and Jacob Tsotadze (Jr., Menlo Park, Calif./Sacred Heart Preparatory) (24 seconds) exchanged goals in the closing seconds of the game for the 18-14 final score.
For Brown – which will meet No. 5 seed/Division III No. 10 MIT at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, November 23, in the Third Place game – Balla (three), Molnar (two), Hadar (two), Tunney (two) and Tierney (two) notched multi-score games to account for 11 of their team’s 14 goals. Josipovic, Vranesh and Tachiki also found the twine for the Bears in the loss.
The game against MIT will mark the third meeting between the two institutions this year as Brown knocked off the Engineers 18-12 at home in Providence on October 11 before picking up a 14-10 win in Cambridge, Mass., on November 1.
Harvard – which will take on a Princeton squad that handled MIT by a 17-7 cont in the other semifinal – received a total of 15 goals from Burghardt (six), Sogaard-Srikrishnan (five) and Hunt (four). Strauser, Tsotadze and Peabody each scored once as the Crimson raised their record to 7-3 in away games, 3-4 in neutral site contests and 10-2 at home in the confines of Blodgett Pool.
| 1st Q | 2nd Q | 3rd Q | 4th Q | – | FINAL | |
| No. 18 Harvard University | 3 | 8 | 2 | 5 | – | 18 |
| No. 19 Brown University | 3 | 4 | 5 | 2 | – | 14 |
| Brown Goals: | Dominik Balla (3); Hugo Molnar (2); Daniel Hadar (2); Griffin Tunney (2); Jaxson Tierney (2); Filip Josipovic; William Vranesh; Jeremy Tachiki | |||||
| Harvard Goals: | Jack Burghardt (6); Vilas Sogaard-Srikrishnan (5); Mason Hunt (4); Dean Strauser; Jacob Tsotadze; Lukas Peabody | |||||
| Exclusions: | Brown – 13 ; Harvard – 7 | |||||
| Advantage Opportunities: | Brown – 3-for-7 ; Harvard – 5-for-13 | |||||
| Sprints: | Brown – 2-for-4 (2nd, 3rd) ; Harvard – 2-for-4 (1st, 4th) | |||||
| Cards/Misconducts: | YC – Harvard (Head coach Ted Minnis, 6:11 left in 3rd Q); YC – Brown (Bench, eight seconds left in 3rd Q); MD – Brown (Mac Berry, 6:55 left in 2nd Q) | |||||
| Officials: | Val Vasilchikov, Alex Stankevitch | |||||
Harvard University’s Dean Strauser (#11)
Brown University’s Daniel Hadar (#9)
Harvard University’s Vilas Sogaard-Srikrishnan (#10)
