Box score

NEWARK, NJ—The sets were all close, but in the end, it was visiting George Mason scoring a 3-0 men's volleyball sweep of NJIT Friday night in Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association competition in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
More often than not, George Mason is the second-best team in the EIVA behind perennial champion Penn State and that appears to be the case again, as the Patriots entered play tied with Princeton for second place at 5-2, while 8-1 Penn State leads the pack.
 
Mason, which comfortably downed NJIT in the teams' first 2013 meeting on February 16 in Fairfax, VA (25-19, 25-19, 25-16). On top of that, GMU stands just on the outside of the national Top 15 in the latest American Volleyball Coaches Association Division I-II poll, as the team with the most votes among those not ranked.
 
Still, Friday night's sweep of the Highlanders did not come easily for George Mason, which prevailed 25-23, 25-22, and then had to come from behind late to pull out a 26-24 win in the clinching set. The result left George Mason at 6-2 in the EIVA and 8-7 overall, while NJIT's EIVA mark is 1-6 to go with a 3-13 overall record.
 
The visitors had three attackers with double-figure kills totals, led by 13 for senior Mark Jones. Michael Kvidahl, also a senior, put down 11 kills, and junior Pat Sibley added 10 kills. Senior setter Javier Perez piled up a match-best 35 assists, while three different men accounted for the three Patriot service aces.
 
Three Mason floor defenders reached double-figures in digs, topped by 12 from senior Patrick Maloney, with Jones notching 11, and Max McFarland, also a senior, coming up with 10 digs. Sibley led the winners with four block assists.
 
NJIT had a decided advantage in team blocking, more than doubling its guests (15-7) and the floor defense was comparable for both teams, as Mason collected 48 digs, one more than the Highlanders.
 
On this night, NJIT was undermined by inefficient hitting, a problem that also plagued the Highlanders when they faced the Patriots in Virginia. Back then, NJIT's attack percentage was a poor .069. In the rematch it was even worse, checking in at .035 (30 kills, 26 errors, 113 attempts).
 
With coach Ryan McNeil looking for answers to his team's hitting problems, six different players took at least 10 swings, but none of them reached double digits in kills. The top hitter for NJIT was sophomore Ryan Thomas, who notched seven kills with just two errors on 15 attempts (.333 attack pct). Chris Kaepernick and Doug Battersby added six kills each for the home team.
 
Setter Matthew Lui collected 25 assists and, like GMU, NJIT got one ace each from three different players.
 
A big difference from the first time around was that NJIT's defense, keyed by the 15 blocks on Friday, limited GMU to a .113 attack percentage (40 kills, 26 errors, 124 attempts) compared to a .385 for Mason in the first meeting. Still, with nearly as many errors on the attack as kills, NJIT hurt itself with an inability to sustain its attack.
 
Sophomore Oren Zyndorf, seeing increased action as NJIT's libero lately, was the match digs leader, coming up with 17. The blocking leader for the match was Thomas, who had three block solos and five block assists, for a total of eight blocks. Battersby came away with five block assists and Kevin Van Oss had four block assists for the Highlanders.
 
George Mason opened the first set with a 12-7 lead, but NJIT fought back to within a point three times late (18-19, 20-21, and 23-24), but Jones finished off the set for his team with a kill, making the score 25-23.
 
NJIT, which had played well in mounting its first-set comeback, carried that over into the second set, grabbing a 7-3. But George Mason went on a 4-0 run to tie the score and it remained close with nine ties, the last at 17-17. The Patriots broke the tie at 18-17 and led the rest of the way, going up by a set-best four points at 24-20. NJIT staved off set point with a kill by Thomas and a block by the combination of Thomas and Battersby, but a Highlander attack error at 22-24 snuffed their comeback bid.
 
The Highlanders would lead for most of a third set they never trailed by more than a point until the final 24-26. GMU got two of the first three points, but NJIT rallied for a 5-3 lead and did not trail again until 23-24. However, Dhruv Ladd re-tied the score for the home team and extended the match to extra points with a kill that made it 24-24. However, first Sibley and then Jones registered kills to close the set and match for Mason.
 
NJIT, which has played eight of its last nine matches at home, including six of its first seven EIVA contests, will be on the road for much of the remaining schedule (two home matches remain—non-conference vs. King (TN) on March 14 and EIVA home finale vs. Rutgers-Newark on March 26).
 
The road to the finish of the schedule begins Saturday night, when NJIT visits Princeton for an EIVA match at 7 pm.