March 6, 2005

Box Score

PRINCETON, N.J. - The George Mason men's volleyball team was handed a shocking defeat on Sunday afternoon when the Patriots traveled to Princeton for their fourth road game in five days. The Tigers were able to pull off the upset, defeating the 13th-ranked Patriots, 21-30, 33-31, 36-34, 18-30, 15-12 in Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association action.

Mason (12-3, 6-2) had a tremendous advantage in hitting and set a school rally-scoring era record with 21 total team blocks, but Princeton (3-8, 2-5) played strong on the big points. The Tigers were able to survive multiple game points in both the second and third games and pulled away over the final 15 points of the match to avenge a 30-27, 30-24, 30-22 loss suffered in Fairfax just last week.

The Patriots had big hitting games from Shaun Powell, Felix Campos and Matt Steinfurth but could not survive poor serving. Mason committed five service errors in the second game and six in the third game to help Princeton stay in the match. The one highlight on the day was when Felix Campos recorded the 1,000 kill of his career midway through the third game.

After routing the Tigers in the opening game and taking a 12-7 lead in the second game, Princeton refused to back down. The turning point came when, leading 20-15, Dave Egan committed a service error and Hudson Bates and Kyle Swanson each followed with attack errors catapulting Princeton on a 12-2 run. Down three, 25-22, Mason fought back and Matt Steinfurth's service ace gave Mason a pair of game points. But Princeton's Peter Eichler responded with a kill and Powell committed an error to tie the score at 29-29. After an Eichler service error gave Mason a 30-29 lead, Evan Pasion responded for the Tigers to make it 30-30. Bates had a kill to make it 31-30, but Princeton ran off three straight points culminating in Eric Brown and Sean Vitousek blocking a Campos attack to close out the second game.

The third game was as close as a 1-1 match should be, with no team leading by more than two at any point in time. Once again Mason found itself ahead 29-27 and once again Princeton refused to back down. Eichler had a kill and R.J. Goubeaux and Bates committed errors to put the Tigers ahead 30-29. Bates responded with a kill to make it 30-30. Eichler gave Princeton a 31-30 lead on a kill but his bad set on the next point evened the score. Campos had a kill to give Mason a 32-31 lead, but that was the last time the Patriots would be ahead in the game as Princeton won five of the next seven points to take a 2-1 edge.

The fourth game was never contested as Mason jumped out to a 10-5 lead, built the edge to 21-11 and closed out the game, setting up the dramatic fifth set.

Service errors again hurt Mason in the final game. This time, the mistakes began with Princeton up 6-5. Powell committed a service error to make it 7-5 and after he atoned with a kill on the next point, Bates followed with a service error to give Princeton an 8-6 lead. Egan, Powell and Bates had attack errors on the next three points allowing the Tigers to sit comfortably at 11-6. Trailing 14-10, Powell had kills on back-to-back points forcing a Princeton timeout. But on match point, Bates committed his fifth service error of the match, as Princeton earned the win.

Powell had 28 kills and hit .523 in the match, Campos had 17 kills and hit .306 and Steinfurth had 11 kills and hit .529. Steinfurth also had nine block assists while Powell added seven digs. Bates finished with 12 kills, five digs and eight block assists. Egan had 64 assists, six digs, one solo block and eight block assists. Graham Sheppard had a match-high 10 digs.

Princeton was led by Eichler and Vitousek, who each had 19 kills. Eichler added eight digs. Mark Stevens had 10 digs and Vitousek had one solo block and six block assists.

The Patriots return to action on Tuesday when they host East Stroudsburg at 7 p.m.