M. Volleyball Handles Sacred Heart, 3-2

Better late than never.

The Harvard men's volleyball team proved that adage true yesterday as it defeated withstood a mid-match rally to defeat Sacred Heart 3-2 in Fairfield, Conn.

The Crimson (11-8, 1-6 EIVA) arrived late--only 20 minutes before the start of the match--but still managed to jump out to a 2-0 lead and hang on after a Sacred heart comeback forced a fifth game.

"Really, we should have won this match in three," said co-captain A.J. Lewis. "We won the first two games commandingly, and then something happened. At points, it looked like we were two different teams out there."

The Crimson got strong defensive efforts from Lewis, who finished with 18 digs, and junior outside hitter Joe Herger, who added 17. Herger leads the nation in dig average at 2.73 per game, while Lewis is fourth at 2.57.

Co-captain Ed Pankau had a match-high 20 kills and senior middle blocker Evan Mager added 16 to go along with six solo blocks and six block assists.

But in what has become an all-too familiar scenario, the Crimson allowed an inferior opponent to hang around, dropping games three and four 15-11 and 15-4 before finishing the win in the deciding fifth game, 15-7. Harvard took a 2-0 lead on MIT last Wednesday before coughing up the third game in an eventual 3-1 win.

"This reappears a lot," Pankau said. "We take care of the opening games pretty solidly and then we let up because we start thinking too far ahead."

Lewis said that hecklers at Sacred Heart's home court also factored in the brief comeback.

"They had some pretty bad hecklers," Lewis said. "In the third and fourth games, they just started getting inside our heads."

Harvard won the toss at the beginning of game five. With the score tied, 2-2, Harvard won a critical point after a long rally to break Sacred Heart's momentum.

Freshman outside hitter Paul Guilianelli delivered a kill that bounced off a Sacred Heart defender's head and rebounded out of bounds past the baseline. That winner was the first in a 6-1 run that allowed the Crimson to go up 8-3.

"In the fifth game, our passing was much more solid and our play was more intense," Lewis said. "We were talking on the court, and that's something we weren't doing in the third and fourth games."

The Crimson began the day with a travelling snafu, arriving in Fairfield at 12:40 p.m. because it incorrectly thought that the match was scheduled to start at 2 p.m.

That left Harvard limited time to practice and get its game face on, but surprisingly, the delay didn't prove much of a problem, as the Crimson opened the first game with a 10-1 run.

Sacred Heart struggled to establish an offensive rhythm in dropping the first two games.

"They weren't really a strong offensive team," Pankau said. "They hit a lot of balls long, a lot of balls into the net and got a lot of shots blocked, so when our defense did get to handle balls, it responded well."

Pankau had three solo blocks and seven block assists while Herger made two solo blocks and assisted on five others. Pankau leads the nation with a 2.93 blocks per game average.

Freshman setter Conor Gaughan ran the offense efficiently, collecting 61 assists while making seven digs, and Herger had an unusually high five assists in a nice supporting role.

"We've had trouble finishing matches," Lewis said. "We found ourselves in this situation a lot and we're looking to establish more consistency. It was just mental lapses that kept us from winning in three, but we're glad to get the win all the same."

Harvard now turns to its annual spring break trip to California, where it will play Sacramento State, U.C.-Santa Cruz, Cal-Baptist and La Verne before coming back east for the Ivy League Championships on April 11 at Penn.