Crimson Falls Prey To Hawks

The Harvard men’s volleyball team found out the true meaning of bearing down in the clutch last night.

Unfortunately for the Crimson (1-1, 0-1 EIVA), D-III No. 6 Roger Williams (6-4, 2-1) showed them how to do it, winning the contest 3-2.

Bookending strong second and third games, Harvard struggled in the closing of the first and last. The match began with a 39-37 marathon and ended with a two-point run leading to a 17-15 victory for the Hawks.

“As a coach, your kind of a jockey on a horse trying to figure out what makes the horse run, and [what] doesn’t [make it run],” said Harvard coach Rob Keller. “With my guys it’s early in the season, and they’re trying to gel.”

Late in the fourth game, a come-from-behind surge seemed on the verge of bringing the Crimson together as Keller described.

Down 25-16 in this frame, Harvard turned the tables on Roger Williams and put together a 9-3 run. This stretch was highlighted by a nice tip over the Hawks’ defenders by sophomore opposite Seamus McKiernan, sparking five straight points for the Crimson.

But then Roger Williams took the game on a controversial call when a player from both teams got a hand on the ball over the net and it fell off out of bounds on the Crimson side.

“We came out of the gates way too slow because of the second and third games where it was easy,” tri-captain Will Reppun said. “They got up on us in the fourth and won that one, but we should’ve pulled that one out.”

In the final race to 15 for the match, Harvard was able to keep it close. Overcoming a slow start, they managed to tie the score at 15 all, forcing a win-by-two situation. But after losing the serve on the first point, the Hawks put the Crimson away.

After the game, Keller focused less on this last lapse and discussed the problems that plagued Harvard in the first and fourth frames.

“We give up points and runs, then the kids just start grinding and giving up on themselves,” Keller said. “As a coach I try to alleviate that. It’s not about overthinking the game. It’s pretty systematic and rhythmic. There’s a flow to life and a flow to the sport.”

Similar to last year’s start, the Crimson have staggered out of the gate this year, just edging Rivier—who was No. 14 in D-III at the time—last week 3-2 and then dropping last night’s match.

“We have been a really slow starting team so far,” Reppun said. “We haven’t been practicing as a whole squad too long. It showed in the first game when we couldn’t pull it together.”

In that game, Harvard had a number of chances when it was serving for the game, but could not find the one more point needed to jump out to a 1-0 lead against the Hawks.

“We did some things really fundamentally wrong,” Keller said. “And so we really need to spend time working on those things, like passing with two hands and blocking.”

The Crimson played its best in the second and third games when it put together a solid run of these two skills. Five blocks in the early part of the second game led Harvard to jump quickly out of the gate after dropping the extended first-game heartbreaker. Especially strong was junior middle blocker Juan Cardet, who garnered chants of “chiquito” and “mamut” from his Spanish speaking fans after each of his blocks and serves.

One of the best points of the match came in the second game as well with the score at 19-16, Harvard. Tri-captain Juan Ramos extended the rally in the middle of the point with a diving, one-handed play that kept the ball in the air during the middle of the rally. Reppun later connected on a spike to win the point and give Harvard the four-point advantage.

Roger Williams came back to tie the Crimson at 26 apiece. But three stellar blocks on the Harvard side gave it the game, 30-27.

The Crimson will look to return to the winning form it showed in the middle of last night’s contest when it travels to Vassar on Saturday.

—Crimson staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.