Women's Spikers Swept, But It's O.K.

The Harvard women's volleyball team is 0-3. But it doesn't seem to mind much.

Losing to Drexel, Utah State and Rhode Island in the New England Invitational--two three-game sweeps and one four-game defeat--wasn't a particularly auspicious start to the season. None of the matches were extremely close, for in the nine sets Harvard lost the team could score more than 10 only once.

The good side? The competition was pretty good this past weekend, and the Crimson didn't play all that badly. None of the teams were ranked, but Utah State and Rhode Island might soon be, and in any case they're all better than Ivy League teams.

"This is probably some of the toughest competition we'll see this year," Harvard coach Jennifer Bates said. "Rhode Island just came back from playing [national powers] Hawaii and Long Beach State."

Rhode Island ended up winning the tournament, clinching it with a week-end-ending sweep (15-2, 15-9, 15-4) of Harvard on Saturday at the Malkin Athletic Center (Friday's games were at Boston College, while Saturday's were held at the MAC).

In each set, the Rams proved too strong. After Harvard took a 2-0 lead in the first game, URI exploded for 17 unanswered points. The Crimson's passing was shaky, the spiking was hesitant and the Rams were dominant at the net.

The second game was Harvard's best--the score was 9-9 at one point--but Rhode Island came forth with six straight points on the same serve. And in the final set, the Crimson never really got any momentum going.

Maybe URI is better than the entire Ivy League put together, but the match did show in which areas the Crimson can improve.

"We definitely need to work on defense, blocking and especially on bigger hitting," said junior Elissa Hart, who was Harvard's best middle threat and was the team's only representative on the All-Tournament team. "But I think that this is much better competition than we'll see in the Ivy League."

The matches against Drexel and Utah State were much closer. Harvard took the first game from Drexel on Friday night at B.C., 15-9, but got swept in the next three (15-8, 15-9, 15-5). Sophomore Melissa Forcum led the way on offense with 11 kills, followed by Hart's 10, and sophomore setter Kate Nash dished out 30 assists.

In the second game of the tournament on Saturday morning at the MAC, Utah State topped Harvard in three somewhat close games (15-7, 15-7, 15-13). Hart had 12 kills, while junior co-captain Lolita Lopez added 12 digs.