In this weekend's victories over Princeton and Navy, the Harvard men's team discovered a formula for success--over- coming adversity. Harvard  4 Princeton  3 Harvard  7 Navy  0

There may have been gusting, relentless winds. There may have been frigid weather.

And there may have been two teams desperately wanting to put a dent in the Crimson's season.

But the Crimson was not ready to give in that easily.

In the tightly-contested 4-3 win over Princeton, the 26th-ranked Crimson (13-6 overall, 5-0 EITA) not only had to overcome poor weather conditions, but also a talented and feisty Tiger squad--a team that defeated the Crimson at regionals last year.

Princeton began the match by taking two of the three doubles matches to grab the doubles point, taking advantage of a persistent Crimson weakness.

Although captain Andrew Rueb and sophomore Mitty Arnold pulled out an 8-4 victory at first doubles, the other struggled.

At second doubles, freshman Tomas Blake and sophomore Josh Hausman lost 8-6, while at third doubles freshman Philip Tseng and junior Adam Valkin were given a rude awakening with an 8-0 loss.

"We haven't spent enough time on it [doubles]," Rueb said. "Now that matches are going, it's hard to patch up something that needs a year of work."

Although it dropped the doubles point, the Crimson took this wake-up call to heart and came back in the singles matches with a vengeance.

"Once we got down, the team showed its character by rising to the occasion," Rueb said.

The singles matches proved to be equally as tough as the doubles, with one exception--it was the Crimson who came out on top.

At first singles, Rueb pulled out an impressive 7-6, 6-3 win against Reed Cordish.

"The second set against Reed was the best set that I have played all year," Rueb said. "I told myself that I was going to let myself make mistakes--as long as they were productive mistakes."

The Crimson also took away wins at second, fourth and fifth singles--with Tseng, Arnold and Junior Dan Chung winning their respective matches.