Harvard Fails To Lock Up Outright Title

Having already clinched a share of the EIVA Hay Division and in search of an outright title, the players on the Harvard men’s volleyball team (11-7, 6-2 EIVA Hay) set out to Newark, N.J., on Friday night to claim sole possession of its division’s top honors. Instead, the Crimson traveled home after being dealt a crushing 3-0 (30-28, 30-25, 30-23) loss from league rival Rutgers-Newark (9-13, 6-2).

“Rutgers-Newark was a really good team and they were ready to go,” senior Jeff Nathan said. “They came off right at the very beginning and never looked back.”

Earlier last week, co-captain Brady Weissbourd broke his finger in practice while Nathan, a crucial player at the libero position, sprained his ankle. With a depleted roster, the team’s performance on the offensive side was hampered, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time.

The loss snapped a four-game winning streak for Harvard but ended a seven-game skid for Rutgers-Newark. And while the Crimson and the Scarlet Pioneers split the division title, the loss gave Rutgers-Newark the edge in a tie-breaker, allowing the team to claim the top seed in the upcoming EIVA Conference Championship. Harvard will enter the postseason as the second team representing the Hay Division.

“Going in, I felt that we knew what we had to do,” freshman Matt Jones said. “I feel like what might have happened was that because we’ve beat them before, and we were on this streak, we underestimated how strong they were going to come out of play. ”

The Crimson found itself in a 14-8 deficit early in the first set. After calling a timeout, Harvard received an offensive spark with kills from junior Erik Kuld and Jones keeping the opening set close at 18-16. But a combination of careless service errors and attack errors made it tough for the Crimson to win over a scrappy Pioneers team that played well on both sides of the ball. With Rutgers-Newark barely hanging on to a 29-28 lead, a kill by junior Kenneth Stambaugh gave the first set to the home team.

“I think that they serve the ball really well,” Nathan said. “As a unit, we didn’t pass particularly well, so that definitely was a contributing factor.”

While struggles to pass and establish an offensive presence would prove to be the Achilles’ heel for Harvard throughout the game, it was the superb serving from Rutgers-Newark that would be the story of the day. In just three sets, the Pioneers racked up ten service aces, and the Crimson simply had no answer for its opponent.

“Anytime a team serves you ten services aces, that’s eight points they have on you right there,” Jones said. “I personally got aced four times. As a result, we didn’t pass particularly well and they hit pretty well.”

The Crimson’s offensive troubles would continue just as the Scarlet Pioneers began to warm up. In the second set, Rutgers-Newark found its offensive rhythm, and fine-tuned it to a hitting percentage of .453, with just three errors. Senior Kenny Rienecker led the way with five kills, and the Pioneers went on to take the second set 30-25. Harvard posted a respectable .250 hitting percentage, totaling 11 kills, but Rutgers-Newark was simply on top of its game, limiting Weissbourd’s damage to just nine kills on the night.

“After the first game, we were close, but we could never match [Rutgers-Newark],” Jones said. “They just came to outplay us the whole night.”

By the third set, it became clear who wanted—and needed—the victory more. An early 4-4 tie kept Harvard within striking distance, but the Scarlet Pioneers would not relent their strong offensive showing, extending a 19-11 lead after yet another service ace by junior Jon Keller. The lead would widen to nine at 23-14 as senior Nate Stott contributed two service aces of his own. Just when it appeared that the Crimson was ready to concede defeat, however, Harvard found itself down just four, 25-21, after a kill from Kuld and several attack errors from Rutgers-Newark gave the Crimson another chance to come back.

But a timeout from the Scarlet Pioneers would disrupt Harvard’s momentum, and Rutgers-Newark would cruise to a 30-23 victory after registering 15 kills to just five errors in the third set. Meanwhile, the Crimson finished the set hitting a dismal .045 to go along with seven errors.

“Anytime that you can’t pass well, it’s tough to get the offense going,” Jones said. —Staff writer Kevin T. Chen can be reached at ktchen@fas.harvard.edu.