April 30, 2005
Box Score
The George Mason men's volleyball season came to a close on Saturday night in a place where many volleyball seasons have gone to die as the Patriots fell to Penn State in the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association Championship Finals, 30-20, 30-19, 30-32, 30-24 at Rec Hall in University Park, Pa. in front of a crowd of more than 2,000. The Nittany Lions earned the EIVA's automatic berth in the NCAA Final Four with the win, something it has done for seven straight years, and 20 times overall. Mason was looking for its fourth trip to the NCAA Final Four and first since 1988.
Penn State was exceptional on the offensive end hitting .386 in the match while Mason was kept to just a .167 mark. Mason struggled to find a way to stop Matt Proper, the EIVA Player of the Year. He recorded 26 kills and had seven blocks while hitting .435. Mason's Shaun Powell was the lone Patriot in double-digits in kills with 22, but he hit .182, well below his season average of .373. Dave Egan had 44 assists for Mason and Matt Steinfurth added nine kills and nine blocks. Hudson Bates added 10 kills and six digs.
The first game saw No. 2 Penn State turn a slight 4-3 edge into a gaping 19-9 advantage. The 14th-ranked Patriots hit a paltry .034 in the first game while Penn State hit at a .435 clip. Proper had six kills and no errors on seven attacks in the opening game and he added a couple of block assists. To make matters worse for Mason, the Patriots' first-team All-EIVA opposite hitter Powell managed to hit just .083 in the game, with four kills and three errors on 12 attacks. He did have two service aces, however, but the Patriots committed five service errors in the first game.
The second game was never close as Penn State (30-3) jumped out to a 4-0 lead which never shrank to less than three. The Nittany Lions picked up on their hitting percentage from the first game, hitting .621 in the second game. They recorded 20 kills while committing just two errors on 29 attacks. Proper added another five kills without an error on seven attacks. Nate Meerstein and Keith Kowal each had four kills in the game as well. Powell and Hudson Bates also picked up their play from the first game as Mason hit .182, but Penn State's increased efficiency on the offensive end more than offset that.
The third game began with Penn State letting its guard down and Mason playing with nothing to lose. The Patriots jumped out to a 6-1 lead before Penn State rallied to win 11 of the next 13 points and go ahead 12-8. Mason was able to make up that deficit, eventually taking a 24-20 lead. Mason was able to hold that lead down the stretch, having three game points with a 29-26 lead. But Penn State fought them off, as well as a game point at 30-29, before Mason closed out the game, 32-30. Powell had eight kills in the third game as Mason hit .220 while holding Penn State to just .238. The big difference was Mason's play at the net on defense as the Patriots recorded 7.5 total team blocks in the game after recording just 1.0 total in the first two games combined. Steinfurth had two solo blocks and five block assists in the game.
The fourth game saw Mason again control the action from the start, jumping out 2-0 and holding the lead until Penn State tied the score at 12-12. The two teams traded points until Penn State finally took the lead at 14-13. The Nittany Lions extended the lead to 16-13 before Mason fought back to tie the score at 19-19 and 20-20. From there Proper had a pair of kills and Penn State never looked back, winning 10 of the match's final 14 points for a 30-24 win in the fourth game. Proper had nine kills in the final game while Gary Vogel had four digs.
The Patriots finished the season with a 19-10 record. Mason has been ranked for 12 of 16 weeks this season. Powell set a school record for single-season kills in the rally-scoring era with 477. Powell and Egan were named All-EIVA first team while Steinfurth and Bates were named All-EIVA second team. Bates was the EIVA Newcomer of the Year. Mason loses Egan and Felix Campos from this years squad as the pair have exhausted their eligibility. Egan is third all-time at Mason in assists with 3,424, while Campos is the school's career leader in kills in the rally-scoring era with 1,085.
