Playing well enough to win on the road is no easy task.

Arriving late and minus four players makes it close to impossible.

Faced with such a situation, the women's volleyball team dropped a 15-1, 15-2, 15-1 match last night at the University of Lowell.

A comedy of errors, which "really affected the mental aspect of the team's game", according to Coach Ishan Gurdal, landed the team at Lowell with no time to warm up or get taped and only ten minutes before the game would have been forfeited to the hosts.

Following the match, Gurdal recalled the string of mishaps that plagued the Crimson before the game.

The Harvard van reserved to transport the team to Lowell was out of commission--necessitating the use of a charter bus. The hired bus went to Quincy Square to pick up the team.

The spikers, unfortunately, were waiting at the Indoor Track and Tennis Facility.

Gurdal, meanwhile, worried that the spikers would not make it to Lowell on time, secured two cars. The cars, however, would fit only 10 players, forcing Gurdal to leave four team members behind.

Although the bus eventually did arrive, the forlorn foursome had already left the ITT and never made the trip.

Gurdal thought that the mishaps were largely responsible for the team's "flat" performance.

Co-Captain Coco Trumbull cited the team's lack of mental preparedness, but did not attribute this attitude to anything specific.

"It's a mental game and if people are not psyched there's not much you can do," Trumbull said.

The loss, the spikers' second straight, drops the Crimson's slate to 7-5 heading into Tuesday's match with crosstown rival M.I.T.

Both Gurdal and Trumbull consider the Tech match extremely important.

Trumbull stressed the need to end the brief losing streak and avenge a loss to the Engineers last year.

"They're one of the strongest teams in New England," Gurdal said. "We're more talented, but if we're spastic and inconsistent we won't stand a chance."

More important, however, according to Gurdal, is the Saturday, October 20 match with Brown, which should give the spikers an idea of how they match up against other squads in the Ivy League.

"It [the Brown contest] means more to the players because it all boils down to what we do in the Ivy League. It will enable us to figure out how far we have to go."

Although Gurdal feels that Penn and Princeton will be the favorites to win the Ivy tournament, he is confident that his team will fare better than last year's sixth-place finish.

"We have so much potential, but we haven't been able to put it together as a team yet," Trumbull said, echoing her coach's sentiment. "We're going to put it together before the Ivy Tournament."