March 2, 2005

Box Score

The George Mason men's volleyball team had match point in the fourth game and match point in the fifth game but couldn't close the deal as the Patriots suffered their second straight loss on Wednesday night, falling to NCAA Division III No. 1 Juniata, 22-30, 30-27, 24-30, 34-32, 17-15.

The 13th-ranked Patriots outhit Juniata, had more kills, more assists, more digs, more total blocks and fewer service aces but couldn't win the big points. The Patriots led 30-29 in the fourth game before a Felix Campos service error evened the score. Juniata's Nathanael Ocasio and Cordt Withum blocked a Hudson Bates attack to make it 31-30 but Mason tied the score at 31-31 on a Shaun Powell kill. Ocasio and Bates traded kills on the next two points before Glenn DeHaven and Matt Springer had back-to-back kills to give Juniata the fourth game and tie the match at 2-2.

Juniata jumped out to a 10-6 lead in the fifth game before a Campos kill made it 10-7. Ocasio had an attack error to make it 10-8 and Campos and Matt Steinfurth came up with a big block to make it 10-9. Trailing 13-12, Campos and Bates had back-to-back kills to give the Patriots a second match point. This time, Ocasio came up with a kill to keep Juniata alive. DeHaven once again had a kill to give Juniata match point and this time, Jeremy Barndt came up with the game-winning kill.

Campos had 21 kills and hit .500 in the match to go along with seven digs. He is just 28 kills from 1,000 for his career. Bates had 24 kills, four block assists and seven digs. Powell had 18 kills, passing 800 career kills in the process, and six digs. Steinfurth had 10 kills and hit .571. Dave Egan had 69 assists, tying the school-record for single-match assists in the rally-scoring era. His previous career-high was 68. The Patriots' 74 assists in the match also broke, by one assist, the team match record for assists in the rally-scoring era. Graham Sheppard added eight digs.

Mason hit .378 in the match while Juniata hit .326. The Patriots had 74 assists to Juniata's 70 and 35 digs to Juniata's 28. Mason also had a 10-5 advantage in total blocks. For Juniata, Cordt Withum had 16 kills and hit .600, Barndt had 14 kills and hit .571, and Ricky Ziegler had 65 assists and five digs. Tim Cole had a match-high 10 digs.

For Mason, this was the first of four road matches in five days. The Patriots are at New York University on Friday, Rutgers-Newark on Saturday and Princeton on Sunday.