Mesmerizing.

That's the only word that can possibly describe Saturday's women's volleyball thriller between Harvard and Princeton at the Malkin Athletic Center.

Sparked by perhaps its strongest team effort of the season, the Crimson overcame a two-set deficit to finally defeat the Tigers in five sets.

Finally.

This win was the first for the Crimson (8-8 overall, 3-3 Ivy) against the Tigers, who have captured seven Ivy titles since 1979. On Friday, Harvard also defeated Penn for the first time.

"This weekend they played the way I knew they'd win," Coach Wayne Lem said. "Unfortunately, it took a bit of time. The team is really starting to pull together...the team's showing maturity."

For the first two sets of the game, however, it looked as if history would repeat itself as Princeton settled into an all-too-familiar routine and won, 15-3, 15-6.

Harvard, however, decided to make some history of its own. Down 11-6 in the third set, a Schossberger block sent the Crimson off on its quest.

Before the Tigers could spell out Schossberger's name, the Crimson went on an unstoppable nine-point run. Dani Cunningham's three straight aces and Peri Wallace's two blocks gave the Crimson its final five points to close out the third set, 15-11.

"They got down on themselves in the third set," Schossberger said.

The Tigers roared back to life in the fourth set, quickly piling up a 9-3 lead. But Harvard would not give up and teamed together in every sense of the word, slowly sealing the gap to tie the game, 12-12.

Princeton Coach Glenn Nelson called a time-out. It almost seemed as if he told his team to lose--the Crimson won the fourth set, 15-12.

"We showed character coming back," Burger said.

In the final set of the match, the Tigers scored three unanswered points to once again take a quick lead. But then Cunningham took to the service spot.

Before the Tigers could react, Cunnigham's serves led to six straight Harvard points and a 6-3 lead.

After a brief rally, it was Christina Smith's turn. The Crimson scored five more points, including an ace by Smith. Score: 11-3.

At this point, the Tigers were running around in confusion: How could they stop these breakthrough serves? After a single point made it 11-4, Lem substituted senior Yvonne Karanas for Wallace on the serve.

It was a timely substitution. Karanas scored two spectacular aces. Score: 13-4.

Game Over

The Tigers broke the serve and scored one point before Cunning-ham's huge kill muzzled them. Cunningham ended the game with two more kills for the 15-5 victory.

"We made them make mistakes," Lem said. "If this continues, some interesting things will be happening at the Ivy League tournament [held November 10-12 in Philadelphia]. We'll know our standing by the way we play in our invitational."

Harvard will host the Harvard Inivitational November 4-5 at the MAC. This Wednesday, the Crimson travels to Brown for its last regular-season Ivy match of the year.