The Harvard men's volleyball team had a disappointing weekend at the Vassar Tournament. In the round-robin, 10-team tournament, the Crimson went 0-2 in their matches against Long Island University at South Hampton and Roger Williams University.
"We are disappointed because we played badly," freshman Uche Amaechi remarked. "We should have won both of those games."
In the first match on Saturday, the Crimson took the floor against EIVA rival Long Island and lost 3-1 (10-15, 11-15, 15-11, 10-15). Harvard played the match extremely close but trouble returning serves doomed the team.
"If not for their powerful jump-server, it really could have gone either way," freshmen A.J. Lewis said.
In the second Saturday match, Harvard squared off against Roger Williams. In a match that was much more competitive then the score might otherwise indicate, the Crimson was defeated 3-0 (12-15, 5-15, 13-15).
"We didn't have much success, but we had a lot of injuries, so we are not totally disappointed," Lewis added.
The injuries to which Lewis was referring are numerous. One-time starters David Olson, Evan Beachy, Ryan Westendorf and Evan Meager are all at less then 100 percent.
As for the future, the Crimson is optimistic.
"We are clearly still developing. We haven't had any consistency because we keep shifting our line-ups," captain Abbas Hyderi said. "We need to play more together and work through the injuries. We have had no consistency."
If anything positive has come out of all of the injuries, it is that the Crimson has had the opportunity to give its freshmen some game experience.
Amaechi, Lewis and fellow first-year Kalon Morris have been able to contribute to the team.
Harvard's next match is against MIT at home on Wednesday. Its EIVA league play does not resume until the weekend of February 17 when the Crimson will host New York University and Long Island University.
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