Harvard Men’s Volleyball Drops Two to NJIT in Final Conference Clash

The Harvard men’s volleyball team (9-14, 5-7 EIVA) dropped a pair of conference clashes to New Jersey Institute of Technology (14-12, 8-4). The losses concluded an up-and-down regular season for the Crimson and featured up-and-down play throughout the weekend giving cause for both hope and concern heading into the postseason.

Harvard 0 NJIT 3

The first set began with the ferocity expected of such a pivotal match. The two squads traded points throughout the set.

Two early attacking errors by Harvard gave the Highlanders an early lead. From there, a service error by NJIT and a kill by the Crimson brought the score back even. The teams stayed within one point of each other until consecutive attacking errors from Harvard conceded another two point lead to the Highlanders at the 6-8 mark.

NJIT stretched its lead to 11-8 before the Crimson came storming back, taking advantage of sloppy play from the Highlanders. The lead oscillated from there until consecutive kills from sophomore outside Quinn Bishop off of strong serves by junior outside Zach Berty forced a NJIT timeout with Harvard up 19-16.

The timeout failed to immediately stop the Crimson run as Harvard scored two more points out of the timeout and opened a five point lead, the biggest of the set. The Highlander’s coach’s wisdom eventually sunk in and NJIT made a 3-0 run of its own, forcing a Crimson timeout at 21-19.

A block out of the timeout and a powerful kill brought the score back even for the Highlanders. A combo block by senior outside Owen Fanning and Bishop stopped the bleeding, but a service error and a suffocating block gave NJIT the lead right back.

A foot-fault service error for Harvard brought the Highlanders to the doorstep of winning the first set. While Bishop had a dominant first set for the Crimson, he was rejected by a pair of NJIT blockers at the net for the final point of a 23-25 first set loss for Harvard.

The deflating end to the first set carried over for the Crimson. An early 1-5 deficit made for a bleak start. Harvard did not give up and began to chip away at the lead. Just as the Crimson seemed poised to catch up after cutting the gap to two, the Highlanders separated again, pushing the lead back to five.

Refusing to give-in. Harvard made another push to make the score 18-20. However, just as before, NJIT immediately stretched the lead back to five and forced the Crimson to burn a desperate timeout. The timeout proved too little too late for Harvard as the Highlanders took the second set 25-20.

Things went from bad to worse for the Crimson in the third set. Harvard had a better start than the previous set, but it did not matter as a 7-1 run by NJIT ballooned a 4-3 lead to an 11-4 killing.

The Crimson could never make a significant dent in the lead, only cutting it as low as five. Ultimately, the Highlanders took the third and final set 25-16 to complete the sweep.

Harvard 1 NJIT 3

Following the previous day’s sweep, Harvard looked to seize momentum early in the second game. A service error by NJIT and strong offense spearheaded by two points from sophomore middle Owen Woolbert opened up an early lead for the Crimson.

Woolbert continued his solid play throughout the set. Although the Highlanders swiftly erased the early Harvard lead, Woolbert logged two more kills to give the Crimson a 10-7 advantage.

Once again, NJIT destroyed the Harvard lead and this time flipped the advantage behind a strong defensive effort. The Highlanders kept this lead for the remainder of the set. A charge by the Crimson made the score 19-20, but Harvard would not score again as NJIT claimed the first set 25-19.

The Crimson again claimed the lead early in the second set. This time, it was the Highlanders strong offense that erased the advantage. NJIT strung together kills that evened up the score.

From the 10-10 mark, the two squads alternated points for the next 17 points, until the 19-19 mark. Clean volleyball characterized this stretch as nearly all of the points from each team came via kills.

Yet again, it was the Highlanders who rose up to the moment to claim the set. NJIT was cleaner during the critical time and took the set 25-23.

The third set continued the evenly-matched play from the second set. There was a palpable hunger and desperation from Harvard as the squad was down to its last life.

The foes exchanged kills throughout the set as neither side took a lead of more than one until a 3-0 run spurred by two kills and a block from Woolbert helped the Crimson seize a 21-18 edge.

A kill by the Highlanders was the only interruption of Harvard’s best stretch of volleyball all day. The 3-1 run quickly became a 7-1 run as senior outside Logan Shephard and freshman outside Sawyer Nichols tacked on kills of their own to give the Crimson a much needed 25-19 set victory.

The hot play continued for Harvard early in the fourth set as Nichols and Shephard each added another kill to their tally.

Throughout the heart of the set, the Crimson would bend, but its lead refused to break as the score ranged from Harvard up two to a tied game.

However, this time it was NJIT that used a 7-1 run to claim the set. With the Crimson up 19-17 and feeling good about forcing a decisive fifth set, the Highlanders unleashed a barrage that left Harvard with few answers. The Crimson survived two match points but ultimately succumbed to NJIT 25-22, losing the set and the match.

For Harvard, only conference tournament seeding was on the line. Two wins this weekend could have vaulted the Crimson as high as third in the EIVA. Now, Harvard is saddled with the sixth and final seed and will face third seed Penn State in the quarterfinals. The Crimson split its meeting with Penn State earlier this season.

Harvard will face the Nittany Lions on Wednesday in the EIVA Tournament at 7:30 p.m.

—Staff writer Reed M. Trimble can be reached at reed.trimble@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @ReedTrimble1.