Men's Volleyball Sweeps Sacred Heart, Sets Up Postseason Rematch

In the final game of the regular season, the Harvard men’s volleyball team recorded its 11th sweep of the year and locked up the three seed in the EIVA postseason tournament.

The Crimson (17-7, 10-4 EIVA) traveled to Sacred Heart on Saturday afternoon to face the Pioneers (4-19, 2-12). Coming into the weekend, the third and fourth seeds were still up for grabs in the EIVA Championship tournament. With the fourth seed having to play the 14th best team in the nation—Penn State—the difference between placing third or fourth was made even starker.

Harvard needed a win and a Princeton loss to guarantee the three seed, and the team got just that with Harvard’s 3-0 victory over Sacred Heart and George Mason’s 3-0 win over the Tigers.

“I think we looked at it as just another game this season that we could win and win in three,” junior co-captain Nick Madden said. “It didn’t matter where George Mason or Penn State was and who they were playing because we just knew we needed to go out and get the win.”

The third set was back-and-fourth the entire way, with the teams trading points until it was 13-all. The Crimson used kills by Madden and sophomore outside hitter DJ White to take a 16-13 lead, but the Pioneers battled back to take a 23-22 advantage. However, back-to-back kills by White and Madden followed by an attack error by Sacred Heart gave Harvard the three-set victory.

The Crimson had a strong game on both ends of the floor, posting a .432 hitting percentage while limiting the Pioneers to .111 in the same category. The .432 hitting percentage for Harvard’s offense is the team’s fourth best mark on the season.

Early in the first set, the Crimson fell behind, 14-9. After battling back to within two, Harvard used a 7-0 run with Madden serving to take a commanding 23-18 lead. The 7-0 run was fueled by five hitting errors by Sacred Heart to go along with an ace for Madden and a kill by freshman outside hitter Branden Clemens.

Madden led the Harvard offense on the afternoon with a team-high 11 kills and a .550 hitting percentage. The junior opposite hitter was not limited to the offensive side of the stat sheet though. He also led the team in digs, with seven. Clemens recorded seven kills on just 12 attacks with no attack errors for a stellar .583 hitting percentage to go along with five digs and one ace.

Junior outside hitter Brad Borsay and junior setter Jason Kinney kept the Pioneers in the game with their offense, tallying 10 and nine kills, respectively, while adding five digs apiece.

To start the second set, the Crimson jumped out to an early 5-1 advantage, a lead it would not relinquish in the frame. Sacred Heart would later cut the deficit to two, 10-8, but two more runs by Harvard pushed the visiting squad’s lead to 23-15. A block by sophomore middle blocker Caleb Zimmick and an attack error by the Pioneers gave the Crimson the second set, 25-16.

Zimmick led the strong defensive effort for the Crimson with a team-high six blocks. Co-captain and setter Rob Lothman added four blocks of his own to go along with his 29 assists.

“Two things really stood out to me about Saturday’s game that we did really well—blocking and serving,” Lothman said. “Caleb was doing a great job getting to a lot of balls and not only getting some blocks, but also forcing [Sacred Heart] to make errors while trying to hit around him. On the serving side, we had as many aces as serving errors which is pretty tough to do in this league.”

Saturday’s win marks only the second time all season that Harvard has achieved an ace-to-error ratio of at least one. White led the strong serving night for the Crimson with a team-high three aces. The sophomore also tallied nine kills and five digs for a strong all-around performance on the afternoon.

Saturday’s win over the Pioneers in its regular season finale sets up a rematch of last year’s EIVA semifinals as Harvard will face George Mason in the first round of the postseason tournament for the second year in a row.

“Having consistent winning seasons two years in a row is a really good sign that this program in on the rise,” Lothman said. “I think we are here to stay as one of the top two or three teams in our conference and that we are going to [make it to the postseason] year-in and year-out.”