Harvard Downs 'Cats for First Home Win

The Harvard men’s volleyball team picked up its first home win of the season last night with a 3-0 (30-28, 30-27, 30-23) victory over Johnson & Wales at the Malkin Athletic Center.

Trailing 11-9 in the third frame, the Crimson (2-3) put together an 8-1 run, capped off by a kill by junior outside hitter Seamus McKiernan to take a five point lead. A 6-2 spurt later in the game allowed Harvard to take a 26-18 lead.

The Wildcats trimmed the deficit to five, 28-23, but the Crimson took the last two points to close out the sweep.

“We played well,” sophomore setter Dave Fitz said. “But we were a little too loose, so we have to try to find a balance before our next game.”

Harvard jumped all over Johnson & Wales in the second frame, grabbing an early 11-5 lead. A timeout by the Wildcats couldn’t stop the bleeding, as the Crimson expanded its advantage to 10 points, 23-13. Johnson & Wales got two crucial blocks as part of a four-point run that got the Wildcats back in the game.

Leading 27-21, Harvard began to fall apart, dropping five of the next six points. But senior outside hitter Juan Ramos bailed the Crimson out with a crucial kill, and Harvard would take the game a point later.

“We played clean through parts of all three games,” Harvard coach Chris Ridolfi said. “But we also played sloppy through all three parts, and we’ve got to be able to find the clean [play] consistently.”

The Crimson held a slim advantage throughout the early portion of the first frame. After a McKiernan ace gave the Crimson a 9-5 lead, Johnson & Wales closed the gap to two and never let Harvard pull away by more than that margin over the rest of the game.

Trailing 20-19, the Wildcats took five of the next seven points to grab a two-point lead. But a kill and two aces by senior outside hitter Abe Marouf gave the Crimson a 25-24 lead.

Harvard opened up a 27-25 lead, but Johnson & Wales closed the gap to pull even at 27. An unforced error by the Wildcats gave the Crimson a game point at 29-27. Junior outside hitter Brandon Blanchet contributed a block, which allowed Johnson & Wales to stave off the first. But senior outside hitter Juan Ramos came through with a kill to give Harvard the first game, 30-28.

“We’ve been having slow starts in all of our games,” Fitz said. “There was too much poor passing, poor setting, [and] poor hitting. We starting focusing in a little more in the second game, trying to take a little more time and play the game at our pace, not theirs.”

The match started almost 20 minutes late, as Johnson & Wales was late in arriving to the MAC.

“The extended warm up period probably got us off to a slower start than we would have liked,” Ridolfi said.

The win was Harvard’s second in a row after starting the season with three straight losses.

The Crimson will hit the road this weekend with a trip to Southhampton College before returning home for five straight contests.

-—Staff writer Michael R. James can be reached at mrjames@fas.harvard.edu.