Athlete of the Week: Gresham Bayne '02

It was a matter of time.

The No. 19 Harvard men’s water polo team upset UMass in the third-place game of the Northern Championships on Sunday, 6-5. After a multi-year losing streak to the No. 13 Minutemen—including three earlier losses this season and five last year—the Crimson finally triumphed.

More than most Harvard squads, the water polo team generally seems somewhat ill-suited to individual accolades. The team prides itself on posing a balanced offensive threat—a game in which five or six different players find the back of the net is far more satisfying than one in which one player busts out for a handful of goals.

But the way that the defense has performed recently warrants particular attention, and with that in mind The Crimson is proud to name co-captain Gresham Bayne ’02 its Athlete of the Week.

Bayne stopped seven shots on Sunday, but that statistic doesn’t tell the whole story. Bayne is the type of elite presence in net who changes the shape of a game.

“It’s a misleading number,” Harvard Coach Jim Floerchinger said of the save tally. “You don’t get to look at the shots they don’t even shoot. Teams have to think twice, three times when he’s there, and the active defense we have around him only makes it harder.”

That defense has held the opposition under double-digit scoring in nine of its last 10 games, including three contests against ranked programs and two against a very good Brown team. The tandem of Bayne and junior Paul Tselentis has played no small role in this run, which comes as the team heads into Easterns in two weeks.

Bayne has had to overcome numerous injuries—including one that sidelined him for his entire freshman season—throughout his collegiate career. But he has fought all the way back to make the Crimson better in more ways than one.

“Gresham’s one of the best goalkeepers around,” Floerchinger said. “He’s very athletic. He also brings a lot of maturity to the position and keeps our defense focused.”

Now, the entire team is more focused than ever on winning Easterns and going to the NCAA tournament in December. If Bayne and the defense continue to shut teams down, the best season in Harvard water polo’s history could also be its longest.