Netters To Play Today

Coming off one of the most exhilarating weekends of the season, Harvard's men's tennis team will look to keep the ball rolling today against West Virginia at the Beren Tennis Center.

This past weekend, the Crimson (15-6 overall, 3-1 Ivy) defeated an overpowered Navy team on Friday, 7-0, before cruising past Princeton with surprising ease on Saturday, 5-2.

What made the weekend particularly special was: one, the fact that the team was without the services or three of its top players--junior Andrew Rueb (shin splints), freshman Todd Meringoff (groin injury) and Junior Umesha Wallooppillai (leg injury); and two, the fact that Princeton is one of the four or five teams that Harvard is vying with for a spot in the regional playoffs at Harvard May 14-15.

"It was a great weekend," Rueb said. "Princeton was expecting to beat us, but we came up with it without being at full speed. A lot of people stepped up and played well."

"We really needed to beat Princeton and, although the odds were against us, we managed to get it done," co-captain Marshall Burroughs said. "It puts us in a surprisingly-good position."

Today the team will have the opportunity to improve its position even more against the Mountaineers, another team Harvard is contending with for a spot at regionals.

All signs say that West Virginia will present the team with a hefty challenge.

"They're good--really good," Rueb said. "We play them just about every year, and every year they play us close. This year will definitely be no exception.

Last season, the Crimson edged past the Mountaineers at West Virginia, 4-3.

"We barely beat them last year at full speed, so it will be interesting to see how we can do against them," Burroughs said. "This will definitely be a big meet."

Going into the contest, Harvard can take solace in the fact that West Virginia has been racked by misfortune, too.

The Mountaineers' number-one seed hurt his back a few weeks ago, and will play in the number-four singles position. Besides that, though, the team is solid.

"They always have quality people in pretty much every spot, and they usually have good people backing them up," Burroughs said. "I don't think that it [the injury] will hurt them that much."

Action will get started this afternoon at 2:00 p.m.

"We're approaching a critical part of our schedule," Meringoff said. "Hopefully, in this match and in the next few matches we can get by with wins, so that when all of our players get back, we can turn it up to full throttle."

After today's match, the team will travel to Yale on Friday and Brown on Saturday.