Box score
FAIRFAX, VA—The first set was close Saturday afternoon, but George Mason won the second and third sets easily for a 3-0 sweep of visiting NJIT in the final Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association Tait Division of the 2009 regular season for each team.
George Mason defeated the Highlanders, 30-26, 30-15, and 30-18 Saturday. Mason will continue in the EIVA postseason playoffs, while NJIT, which did not qualify for postseason, ended its season.
GMU's all-East star Kyle Gramit accounted for 17.5 points on 15 kills, two service aces and a block assist. Gramit had 15 kills and just two errors in 28 swings, for an impressive .464 attack percentage that was only slightly better than his team's dominant hitting clip of .443.
Ben Nichols added 11 kills for the Patriots, while setter Ryan Kwiatkowski logged 42 assists.
George Mason dominated the serving game, with 12 aces to two for the Highlanders and Luke Maloney served five aces, followed by four for Nichols.
On defense, Gramit had a match-best 11 digs, while Mason, which had a team blocking advantage of 10.5-to-3, was led at the net by six block assists for Erik Lanham and five for Kwiatkowski.
Freshman Nick Jensen paced the NJIT attack with eight kills. He made two errors in 14 attacks for a .429 hitting percentage. Senior setter Rodrigo Correa had 27 assists in his final career match, while he and classmate Robert Thomas each had a service ace.
Freshman Ricky Duran was NJIT's digs leader, at seven. Jensen and another freshman, Adam Gustafson, got all the blocks for the Highlanders with a block solo each and then a block assist each as the combined on NJIT's third block.
Correa, Thomas, and Amobi Armstrong all closed out careers that included EIVA postseason berths in each of their three seasons. They helped NJIT to the EIVA Hay Division championship in 2007 and to a berth in the 2008 EIVA semifinals, where they were eliminated by George Mason, then ranked 11th in the nation, in five sets.
Armstrong led this year's team in kills (279), Correa led in assists (658) and Thomas was the blocking leader (57 total; 10 solo, 47 assists).
NJIT, which was winless in 12 EIVA Tait Division matches this season, is slated to return to the EIVA Hay Division for the 2010 season.
