'It's MAC Tonight'

Seven women's volleyball teams will be singing the tune, "It's MAC Tonight," this weekend when Harvard hosts its own invitational tournament at the Malkin Athletic Center (MAC).

The seven teams participating in the tournament will be divided into two pools. On Saturday, Harvard, Brown and Yale, which form the first pool, will play one match against each of the four teams in the second pool--Boston College, the University of Hartford, UMass and Farleigh Dickinson.

Harvard's schedule includes B.C. at 9 a.m. Hartford at 1 p.m. FDU at 3, and UMass at 7.

On Sunday, the top two teams from each pool will be bracketed into semifinal matches with the winners playing for the tournament championship. Matches will be played from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday, and will simultaneously be played on both of the MAC's volleyball courts.

"Right now we have a very good chance," Harvard Captain Manda Schossberger said. "In this tournament, it's going to be the team that lasts the longest."

Harvard beat Brown and Boston College earlier this season, but lost to Hartford, Farleigh Dickinson and Yale. Since the loss to the Elis two weeks ago, the Crimson has rolled off four straight Ivy League victories and clambered into a second-place tie with Yale in the Ivy standings.

Gopher State Attack: The Harvard women's tennis team is following in the men's hockey team's footsteps...on a quest to Minnesota.

The first step in reaching the women's national tennis tournament, held later this month in Minnesota, is this weekend's ITCA Region One Individual Championships, beginning tomorrow in Philadelphia.

Amy deLone, Kim Cooper and Jennifer Minkus, the top three members of the varsity squad, will play singles in the 64-player draw, and deLone and Cooper will be partners in the 32-team doubles draw.

DeLone, seeded 11th, is considered Harvard's only real threat in the singles bracket after accumulating a 3-5 record at first singles this fall for the Crimson. Included among deLone's five losses this fall was a tough three-set match against the tournament's number-two seed.

The team of DeLone and Cooper, seeded sixth in the doubles bracket, is also considered a good threat to take the tourney crown. The two posted a 7-4 record this fall.

As a warmup for some of the tough players she will face in Philly, deLone played a practice match last week against Ros Fairbank, the 40th-seeded professional player in the world. Fairbank took the first two sets, 6-1, 7-6 (7-3), but deLone was up, 3-1, in the third when Fairbank had to leave.

Maybe that's why she had to leave.

Deja vu: Providence has been the nemesis of two women's squads this tall season.

Wednesday, the Harvard field hockey team clambered up to Brown's Warner Roof for a game that would decide the Ivy championship. The Crimson lost, 2-1, in overtime. Sound familiar?

Think back to September 29, when the Harvard women's soccer team travelled to Brown's Stephenson Field to take on the Bruins. Brown's Suzanne Bailey tallied with four minutes remaining in overtime to beat the Crimson, 2-1, in a game that proved to be the difference in the Ivy League race.

Quote of the Week: "If I win, I'm going to wallpaper my room with a picture of the final position, and then I'm going to spike my king."--Issa Youssef of the Harvard chess team, before playing world champion Gary Kasparov. But don't worry about Youssef getting caught for violating Harvard room decoration regulations or being penalized five yards for "excessive celebrating." She was one of eight Kasparov victims in a simultaneous two-hour match Saturday.

Runnerup: "Looking for a good way to lose some money this weekend? Try betting on the Princeton field hockey team, which brings a 2-2 Ivy League record into [Saturday's] game with Harvard."--M.D.S. in the Eclectic Notebook last week before the Tigers upset Harvard, 2-1, in overtime. Looks like he lost his shirt again.