As Michael Landon used to say on "Little House on the Prairie," sometimes it takes a hard lesson "to get you fixin' to do the right thing."

Last night Harvard's men's volley ball team played Laura and learned a similar sort of lesson in a narrow four-game win over Dartmouth in Hanover, N.H.

"In general, we were disappointed with our level of play," Coach Ihsan Gurdal said. "Although we won, we almost lost to a team that should not be even close to us."

"We completely underestimated them," junior Dom Allocco said. "We came in completely expecting to dominate, and we just about got beat. They were ahead in a number of those games."

The Crimson found out that the game would not be the cakewalk it expected in the first game, when it won, 15-12.

"We came out and were really surprised at how good they were," Allocco said. "They had some good middle hitters and they kept the ball alive well. I think we were sort of shocked at first."

Shock turned to downright fear in the second and third games, however.

In the second game, the Big Green got out to a 14-9 lead, before the Crimson mounted a seven-point comeback attempt to take the game, 16-14.

"That was really scary," freshman David Cho said. "In the second games, they looked like they were going to run away with it for a while."

The third game proved scarier, though, as Dartmouth battled back to beat the Crimson 15-9, for the squad's first loss to the Big Green since anyone can remember.

"We kept hearing talk in the lockerroom before the game about how bad Dartmouth was, and how we hadn't lost a game to them in a while, and they beat us," Cho said. "That was a blow."

Luckily, though, while bowed, Harvard wasn't broken. The Crimson rallied in the last game for a 15-12 game victory and the match win.

"Overall, I think we're very disappointed," Allocco said. "A lot of individuals put in a lot of work for us, but we've got to play as a team better. We've got to play as a team better. We've got to work on our middle hitting and our blocking."

"This one leaves sort of a bad taste in your mouth," senior John Carpenter said, "We should have kept the ball away from them more and hit better."

The match was only the Crimson's second of the season. Last week, they defeated M.I.T. 3-0.

"I think it's a good reality check for us," Cho said. "We have Long Beach State on Sunday and they will be really tough. If we play like we did today, we will probably get creamed."