April 9, 2005

Box Score

The George Mason men's volleyball celebrated Senior Night on Saturday night and the emotions stayed around in the first game against Rutgers-Newark. By the second game, the Patriots were back to being all business as they dispatched the Scarlet Raiders, 25-30, 30-22, 30-12, 30-26 in an Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association match at John Linn Memorial Gymnasium.

The 15th-ranked Patriots allowed Rutgers-Newark to hit .696 in the opening game but stepped up the service game and blocking game from that point on, as the Scarlet Raiders never hit better than .217 over the rest of the match. Mason, meanwhile, stayed consistently strong, hitting .400 on the evening.

Shaun Powell led all players with 24 kills and he also had a .564 hitting percentage. He also had four service aces and four block assists as well as three digs for 30 points. Senior Dave Egan had 60 assists and six digs while senior Felix Campos had 10 kills and four service aces. Matt Steinfurth added 11 kills and a .643 hitting percentage while Hudson Bates had 20 kills and five digs.

Brian Honsberger had 14 kills and hit .500 to lead the Scarlet Raiders while Eric Honsbereger had 10 kills and six digs. Graydon Ainsworth had 38 assists and Byron Goff added nine digs.

The Patriots jumped out to big leads in the second and third games to quickly retake control of the match. The fourth game was the tightest of the match, though, as Mason pulled away late but struggled to close out the match, allowing the Scarlet Raiders to score four straight to pull to within three, before a Powell kill ended the match.

Mason has the week off before finishing its regular season on Saturday by hosting No. 3 Penn State in the annual Uvaldo Acosta Memorial Match. Mason locked up the second seed in the EIVA Tournament with Saturday's win and the Patriots will host either Princeton, Springfield or NYU in the quarterfinals on April 23.