Friday night was a far tougher match for Harvard, as it was forced to play conference foe New Jersey Institute of Technology in a tie-breaking fifth game. But the squad suddenly turned it on at the end of the contest, seizing a victory, 3-2, with comebacks in both the overall match and individual games.

“It wasn’t how we wanted it to happen,” Baise said. “We were playing sloppy but we gained some momentum and came back.”

After dropping the first two sets, the Crimson suddenly picked up its game to take the next two stanzas and go into the fifth tied with the Highlanders.

Then, in the last set, Harvard went down early, 7-4, but rallied again, tying the score with three straight points. The teams then traded points until NJIT gained some distance at 14-12.

But the Crimson fought back again. The team scored on two straight match-points to tie the game, and eventually went ahead to win, 17-15.

After the first game ended in defeat, Baise only played several of his starters sparingly for the rest of the match. The team’s struggles continued into the second, which they lost by a wide margin.

But in the third set, Harvard abruptly found its game. After the Crimson secured an early lead, both teams traded points until Harvard went on a strong run to claim a 17-11 lead.

The Highlanders rallied back to 22-20, but it was not enough, and the Crimson eventually came out with its first win of the match, 25-22, to bring the overall count to 2-1.

“We had some different guys come in and do big things for us,” Baise said. “[Freshman outside hitter] Alec Schlossman and [junior outside hitter] Michael Owen really gave us a boost tonight.”

The fourth game went back and forth, with neither team able to maintain a sizeable lead until Harvard managed to earn a 25-23 victory and push the match into the fifth set, where it eventually won, taking both the game and the match.

“[NJIT] is really good and hustles on every play,” Owen said. “They really made us earn it, but we were able to focus up and concentrate on the little things to get it done.”