March 23, 2006
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FAIRFAX, Va. - The fifteenth-ranked George Mason men's volleyball team downed St. Francis (Pa.) on Thursday night at John Linn Memorial Gym in a match with major implications in the EIVA Tait Division standings. The Red Flash entered the game trailing the Patriots by a single match for second place in the division.
With the win, Mason improves to 6-1 in conference play (17-5 overall), while St. Francis (Pa.) drops to 5-3 with the loss (10-8 overall). The victory sets up a showdown with first-place Penn State on Saturday at 7 p.m. at John Linn Memorial Gym. The Patriots trail the Nittany Lions by one match in the loss column, as Penn State has played two more conference matches than Mason at this point in the season.
After taking the first two games easily, 30-22 and 30-25, the Patriots had some trouble putting away the Red Flash in the third game before prevailing 34-32. In the third game, Mason fell behind early 12-9, but reeled off six straight points on a service error by senior Jim Fazzini, an attack error by junior Travis Fox, a ball handling error by freshman Shane Conley, an attack error by sophomore Jonathan Sherrick, a kill by freshman Kyle Gramit and a triple block by Gramit, redshirt senior Bryan Newcomb and senior Matt Steinfurth. The run forced St. Francis (Pa.) to take a timeout to regroup. The Red Flash survived the spurt by the Patriots and came back to tie the score at 24. Neither team could pull away until Mason put three consecutive points on the board after falling behind 32-31 on a kill by Fox. Facing game point, Mason knotted the score at 32 on a kill by Steinfurth. After sophomore Hudson Bates picked up his 12th kill of the match on Newcomb's match-high 46th assist, Steinfurth served an ace to close out the win for the Patriots.
Redshirt senior opposite hitter Shaun Powell had a match-high 17 kills to lead the Patriots, while Fazzini was the only player to break double digits in kills for St. Francis (Pa.) with 11. Mason recorded 50 kills as a team compared to 35 for St. Francis (Pa.), while outhitting the Red Flash .320 to .169.
