Box Score
FAIRFAX, VA—George Mason used a strong finish to top visiting NJIT in the first set and then won the next two with more ease, sweeping past the Highlanders, 3-0 (25-22, 25-18, 25-19) in Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association men's volleyball Friday night.
The loss leaves the Highlanders still in search of their first EIVA win with four of 14 conference matches already in the books. The four EIVA losses, all on the road, have come in succession since the Highlanders went 4-1 in the pre-conference part of the 2014 slate.
George Mason, 5-6 overall, got its first league win, moving to 1-2 after defeating the Highlanders.
Typically, Mason is among the leaders in the annual EIVA race for second place in the EIVA behind Penn State, which has won the last 15 consecutive championships. The Patriots have reached the EIVA postseason tournament semifinals in each of the previous 13 seasons. Included in that run was a 3-2 win over NJIT in the 2008 semifinals when GMU was ranked 11th in the nation.
On Friday, redshirt freshman Jack Wilson notched a match-leading 13 kills and senior Jonathan Lutz added 10 kills to head a George Mason attack that posted a strong .370 attack percentage (40 kills, 10 errors, 81 attempts). Wilson had 13 kills and just one error in 20 swings (.600 pct.) and junior Hunter Stevens added nine kills without an error in 16 attempts (.562)
Setter Joe Heim was the match assists leader, collecting 39, and freshman Christian Malias registered three of Mason's four service aces.
On defense, senior Dave Lucas' 11 digs were match-high for the Patriots, who dominated at the net, posting 12.5 team blocks to just two for the Highlanders. Stevens had six total blocks (1 solo, 5 assists), while redshirt freshman Graham Gresham added five block assists.
Malias and Wilson each had four blocks, meaning four Patriots had at least four individual blocks, while the entire NJIT team was credited with four individual blocks (assisted blocks count as one for an individual and half for the team, since it is one block shared by more than one player).
NJIT's kills leader were
TJ Jurko (12) and
Jabarry Goodridge (10).
Zak Robben notched 22 assists, with
Luke Robbe adding 12. Jurko and
Raphael Anthony each had an ace for the Highlanders.
Libero
Oren Zyndorf paced the Highlanders in digs with nine, while
Ryan Thomas had a pair of block assists and Anthony and
Dhruv Lad had a block assist each.
The opening set was close with seven ties, the last at 18-18. Before that, NJIT had taken leads of 11-8 and later, 13-10. The Highlanders still held a 17-15 lead when George Mason went on a 3-0 spurt, moving on top for good at 18-17 on an NJIT attack error. Looking at a bigger picture, the go-ahead spurt was part of a 10-5 run that flipped the 10-13 deficit for the Patriots into a 20-18 lead.
NJIT was able to get back within a point, 19-20, but the home team closed out the set 5-3 for the 25-22 set win.
Although the second set was not a blowout, George Mason scored the first two points and never trailed, leading by at least four points from 17-13 on. The set was the most efficient one of the three in the hitting department for each team. NJIT's team hitting percentage in the set was .303 (14 kills, 4 errors, 33 attempts), more than double that of any of the other two sets, when the Highlanders hit .154 in the first frame and an unworkable .029 in the third.
Unfortunately for NJIT, the second set was also GMU's best hitting one, with Mason's .533 percentage (17 kills, 1 error, 30 attempts) dwarfing the solid .303 for the Highlanders.
In the clinching third set for the winners, the Patriots went ahead permanently at 8-7 and led by at least five points after going up 13-8.
NJIT is deep in a part of the schedule that finds the Highlanders playing six of seven matches away from home. All six away matches are EIVA contests.
The one exception comes Saturday night at 6 pm, when NJIT hosts Lees-McRae, a program that plays in Conference Carolinas. Based in Banner Elk, NC, the Bobcats are 9-4 with five straight wins, including a sweep at Rutgers-Newark on Friday night down the hill on Warren Street.
Last season, Lee-McRae beat the Highlanders twice (3-1 in Newark and 3-2 in North Carolina).
