Last Sunday, the men's volleyball team suffered its most heartbreaking loss of the season when it squandered a 9-1 lead in the second game and fell to Princeton in the finals of the Ivy League Championship. Harvard experienced the proverbial "agony of defeat."

Last night, the Crimson basked in "the thrill of victory" as it erased the memory of its loss to Princeton with a dramatic win against the Queens College Knights in the first round of the EIVA playoffs.

The No. 9 seed Crimson survived a tumultuous five-game match (7-15,17-16,15-11,3-15,19-17) against No. 8 seed Queens and advances to the next round of the playoffs to face the No. 1 seed Penn State Nittany Lions on Saturday.

Last night's match was Harvard's second against Queens this year. The Crimson closed out its home season last month against the Knights in similarly dramatic fashion by winning the fifth game of that match, 15-13.

Also, on a historical note, last year's match against Queens on the road was another five-game cliffhanger. The Crimson again came out on top in the fifth game, 15-13.

Given such a rivalry between two evenly matched teams, one would expect nothing less than a challenge for the Crimson.

"Queens is a very good team and always plays us well," freshman setter Mike Bookman said before the game. "We'll need to be on the top of our game to win."

Harvard appeared to be in top form as it came out with a quick 3-0 lead in the first game.