Men's Volleyball Second In League

It was set, all set.

The perfect close to the 1993-94 Harvard's men's volleyball season was ready and just waiting to be realized, at least in the mind of senior co-captain Jon Carpenter at mid-season.

"We're going to go down to Princeton for the Ivy League championships, beat Dartmouth or Yale or whoever we play in the first round, and then take on Princeton in the finals," he said. "It will be perfect."

Mano a mano. Powerhouse vs. powerhouse. The traditional titan vs. the upsurgent underling. One could imagine a great match, made all the better by a perfect ending--a hardfought Crimson victory, its second league championship in a row and a spot in the NCAA's tournament of eight.

It was set, all set.

But it didn't happen.

There was a match, all right, with Princeton, even, and it was for the league championship. But in the real version of the story, the Tigers won and the Crimson (14-8 overall, 4-1 Ivy), settling for second place in the league, narrowly missed out on that NCAA tournament bid.

Disappointing? Sort of.

Devastating? Not by a long shot.

"It was a good year and I think everyone is pleased with how we did," senior Carlos Gonzalez says. "We wish we could have beaten Princeton, for sure, but what can you do? We have to be happy the fact that we helped build up our program even more."

"I don't think the disappointment is that great," senior Micah Acoba says. "We've got to be pleased with how everything went. Anyways, if we had actually gotten to the NCAA's, it would have been really nice to have gotten crushed in the first round by Penn State."

Acoba's sarcasm aside, the Penn State reference had at least a little relevance to the Crimson's season. This season, Penn State beat UCLA to garner the NCAA championships, the first Eastern team to do so in years. Penn State's insurgence on the national scene exemplified a more general improvement in East Coast play, a context in which the Crimson's season must be judged.

"Everyone seems a lot better than they have been the past few years--particularly since I was a freshman," Acoba says. "Princeton, for example has improved tons in just a few years. Their best hitter last year in now their third best hitter."

Such improvement wasn't confined to the Tigers, however, as the Crimson felt heat throughout the year from a variety of Eastern sources.

The first third of the season for the team was relatively easy-going. The team took top honors at the Rhode Island Invitational and then, after two losses at the Vassar Tournament, won three in a row against MIT, Dartmouth and perennial power Long Island-Southampton, respectively.

But then the squad began hitting rocks, losing five on a six-game string. The Crimson was blanked by Rutgers and California at the Golden Dome Classic in Newark, N.J., and, after edging past Dartmouth at home, 3-1, lost of Rutgers, 3-0, nemesis Princeton, 3-0, and Springfield, 3-1. The team was 5-7 and the Princeton match-up seemed a distant dream.

But then Harvard started winning. First there was Yale, a 3-0 victim; Roger Williams, another 3-0 victim; and then four teams at the Concordia Invitational, where the Crimson finished second. Next, after a 3-0 loss to Queens in the finals of that tournament, the team edged past NYU and Yale, both by 3-2 scores, and then stomped MIT, 3-0, to finish off the year.

All that was left was the Ivy Tournament and Princeton. And the rest, as they say, was history.

No Ivy championship. No NCAA tournament bid. And no complaints.

"You've got to look at this season in context," Acoba says. "Other teams were getting better and we were coming off of a great season last year."

"We sustained the momentum we've created the last couple of years, and that in itself is an accomplishment," Gonzalez says. "We've done some great things here the past few years--we've really given Harvard's program an identity. We did nothing to hurt that identity this season."

MEN'S VOLLEYBALL

Record: 14-8

Ivy League: 4-1

Key Players: Ned Staebler, Chris Wood, Pete Buletza

Seniors: Micah Acoba, Jon Carpenter, Jonathon Ellisor, Carlos Gonzalez, Mike Meyer, Chris Wood