The days started getting shorter. And most of us were clinging to the last traces of summer, spending every waking moment working on the already fading tan. But not the Harvard women's volleyball team.

The Crimson team was already back at the MAC, setting and spiking the end of its summer away, warming up for a challenging season.

"I don't think the other teams are expecting much from us this year. I don't even know if we're expecting much from ourselves," senior and returning spiker Dani Cunningham said.

Harvard lost four seniors from last year's team (15-15 overall, 3-4 Ivy) which finished fourth in the conference, but still has nine returning players--five seniors, two juniors, and two sophomores--that the team expects will fill the sneakers of the graduates.

"We have a really good nucleus coming back," Coach Wayne Lem said.

"We have lost four players, but we have other players returning to fill up the empty spaces," Co-Captain Wanita Lopeter agreed.

One of those players is sophomore and returning setter Jennifer Garcia.

"We're going to be depending a lot on Jennifer," Lopeter said. "We're really short on setters. If Jennifer breaks her leg or something, we're in really big trouble."

But Garcia is confident, not only in her own abilities, but in those of the team.

"The team is really pulling together. In past years, we've had a problem with communication, but this year already we're unified," Garcia said. VOLLEYBALL Sept. 18  at Boston College  7:00 pm Sept. 20-21  HARVARD CLASSIC  TBA Sept. 27-28  at New England Tournament  TBA Oct. 1  HOLY CROSS  7:00 pm Oct. 5  DARTMOUTH & CENTRAL CT.  1:00 pm Oct. 11  at Cornell  TBA Oct. 12  at Columbia  1:00 pm Oct. 18  PENNSYLVANIA  7:00 pm Oct. 19  PRINCETON  1:00 pm Oct. 23  at Brown  7:00 pm Oct. 29  at Yale  7:00 pm Nov. 2-3  HARVARD INVIT.  TBA Nov. 8-9  Ivy League Championships (at Yale)  TBA

In addition to the Crimson's veterans, the team also has at least two promising recruits, as well as some new walk-on talent.

"We haven't seen the recruits play yet because of the rules that prevent them from coming early to preseason practices, but the new players who have been coming look really good," Lopeter said.

The team starts its official season on September 18th in a road match against Boston College and later faces other New England teams as well as a rival from last year, Concordia, a team from Quebec. In Ivy League play, Princeton is looking like the team to beat--as well as Yale, because as Lopeter explained, "they're Yale."