Men's Volleyball Falls Just Short Against No. 15 Ball State

When Ball State and Harvard faced off in men’s volleyball last season, the Cardinals could only muster 28 kills as the Crimson earned a quick 3-0 victory on its home floor in Cambridge.

In a new year at a new venue, however, Ball State’s junior outside hitter Brendan Surane nearly matched that number singlehandedly with a dominant 20-kill performance. As Surane fared much better, so did the Cardinals squad, which finished with 62 kills.

With its powerful attack, No. 15 Ball State (3-1) dispatched Harvard (1-3) in four sets, 3-1, sending the home crowd of over 700 home happy.

The match was closer than the final score indicated, almost going to a tie-breaking fifth set. With the Crimson holding onto a slim 23-22 lead in the fourth set, Surane scored a kill and immediately followed it with a block to pull his team ahead, 24-23. Cardinals’ senior setter Hiago Garchet made sure Harvard had no time to regroup, delivering a final kill to end the game.

The Crimson thus had no win to show for its efforts for the third time in four matches, and remains winless against ranked opponents. The squad has also dropped games to No. 8 Lewis and No. 7 Hawaii this season.

“It’s been a tough stretch for us, but it’s given us a chance to see where our weaknesses are as a team,” said Harvard captain and outside hitter Branden Clemens. “There’ve been a lot of out-of-system, scrappy plays that we haven’t been making, and that’s something I want to see us do better.“

Despite the shortcomings, the team can look to its comeback in the first set as a building block for the rest of the season. After a barrage of kills by Ball State and also a few costly errors of its own, the Crimson was down 9-1 at one point in the set. Behind four kills by junior outside hitter Casey White, however, Harvard roared back to tie the game at 13.

Several more lead changes and ties later, the visitors pulled out a 25-22 win. White continued to be the key to his team’s surge, finishing the first set with seven kills.

“The guys had a ton of energy to start the game, and it showed when we battled back from that slow start,” White said. “We couldn’t really maintain that energy for the rest of the game, though.”

The Crimson never found itself in such a big hole again, but it was also never able to put together another run. The closest it came to challenging the Cardinals in the second set was when it trailed, 22-20. The set finished, 25-21.

The third set was even more one-sided, and Harvard never closed in by more than four points after falling behind, 18-14. Ball State ultimately prevailed, 25-20.

“They started to play a lot better defense after the first set.” Clemens said. “They were making a lot of really good digs and transition plays that led to points for them, and after that first set, we were never really able to answer back again.”

The biggest problem for the Crimson in the fourth set was answering the Cardinals’ runs with a big one of its own. Harvard came back from 9-5, 12-9, and 17-14 deficits, tying the match up on each occasion, but it never broke through to take a significant lead.

The Crimson finally ran out of steam after pulling ahead briefly at 23-22, when Surane and Garchet took over for Ball State.

“We knew [Surane] was one of their main guys,” White said. “Our game plan going in was to control the middle, but still, to allow one guy on the outside to get 20 kills is unacceptable for us.”

Clemens came close to 20 kills himself, as he finished with 18 of them and also 13 digs in a standout performance in front of friends and family from his home state of Indiana. White added 14 kills and 16 digs, but no other Harvard player had more than nine in either category.

—Staff writer George Hu can be reached at george.hu@thecrimson.com.