Question Marks Loom As Spikers Face Ivies

There are a few "if''s, but victory is certainly not out of the question.

The Harvard woman's volleyball team travels to the Ivy Championships at Cornell this weekend with a couple of big question marks standing between the 9-10 squad and an Ivy title.

Question 1... Can the Crimson play together as a team and not six individuals throughout each three- game match?

The spikers have had difficulties with cohesiveness recently. In their final pre-tourney tune-up against the University of Connecticut Tuesday, they played two strong games but were unable to work as a unit in the other three. The result was a 3-2 loss.

The two good games, that almost enabled the Crimson to pull off a miraculous comeback, showed what the team can do when it does get its act together.

Co-Captain Kathy Wong was buoyed by the performance: "The reason why we came back tonight, good communication," she said after the UConn game, "is the same thing that will help us at the Ivies."

The team obviously knows how to play together, all that remains to be seen is whether the team will be able to perform consistently as more than a collection of individuals thrown out on the court together.

Question 2... Can the spikers maintain a consistent mental and physical level for the entire seven- game round-robin marathon?

The team has been up and down all season, alternating short winning and losing streaks. At the tourney, Harvard will need to be psyched up for every single contest.

"We're so up and down if we have two good practices we'll be ready for the Ivies," said senior Lisa Leithauser after the UConn loss.

For a team that has had troubles winning on consecutive days, the tourney schedule-makers have not been kind. Harvard must play games this evening at 5, 7 and 9 p.m.

Co-Captain Coco Trumbull admitted that having the psychological toughness to play hard in all seven matches would be the team's main hurdle, saying that much of the team's problem this year had been "mental."

Question 3... And this is the most important question, can the Crimson upset the two Ancient Eight volleyball powerhouses?

Last year the team (which entered the tourney with a 10-11 slate) was no match for most of the competition, as it went 2-5 in match play and did not win a single game in its five losses.

This year, Harvard has had only mixed success against league foes, topping Yale and losing to Brown and Dartmouth. The Big Green was one of the two teams that the Crimson defeated in the 1983 edition of the showdown.

Princeton has won the league title four of the last five years, and is the pre-tourney favorite along with the University of Pennsylvannia, which won the crown last year.

Penn's record of 14-3 seems more impressive than Princeton's 21-10 mark, but all three of the Quakers' defeats have been at the hands of the Tigers, the team it beat in last year's final.

The Harvard--Princeton struggle will be at 9 p.m. tonight-the third match of the day for each team Fatigue will no doubt play an important role, which works to the advantage of the Tigers, who in 31 games this season, have had a greater opportunity to develop both their depth and stamina.

The Cantabs will play Penn in their last tourney game on Sunday afternoon, just before the crucial Penn/Princeton clash which will likely decide the champion.

The worries posed by all these "if''s are formidable but by no means insurmountable.

The team is certainly not shying from the task. "People are looking forward to it," says Trumbull, "as a challenge of all that we've worked for this year.