Spikers Third at Rutgers

They've been getting and better, but the Harvard men's volleyball team just wasn't good enough, soon enough this weekend.

The spikers fell to East Stroudsburg, 3-0, in Friday's semifinal round but came back to shut out the New Jersey Institute of Technology, 3-0, in Saturday's consolation match of the Michelob Lite tournament at Rutgers.

"East Stroudsburg is a very strong team," senior Co-Captain Dave Twite said of Harvard's 15-5, 15-9, 15-7 pasting, "and we weren't playing particularly well."

Plagued all season by inconsistency and gaps in the lineup--"always in sort of a state of flux," Twite said--the squad managed to execute a decisive 1`5-8, 15-6, 15-7 victory over NJIT. "It's coming back together," junior Mohan Nadkarni said.

In the absence of thesis-plagued senior Jon Tanaka, one of the squad's strongest players, spiker Twite and junior weak-side hitter Scott Alpert--the newest addition to the starting lineup--set the pace for the Crimson.

Twite "is consistently our best player in tough matches," said senior Co-Captain Terry Martin. And Alpert "played really well--he's really come around," Twite said of the former soccer player.

With junior Jon Ross recovered from the back injuries he's suffered though-out the year rounding out the starting six, the squad's chances for a solid performance in this weekend's Eastern College Volleyball League quarterfinals at Rutgers are promising.

Harvard will probably face NJIT again, as well as Springfield or the University of Pennsylvania. With their hopes for a spot in the Eastern Final Four on the line, "This time," Twite said, "it has to come together."