March 4, 2007

Box Score

FAIRFAX, Va. - Despite winning the first game, 33-31, George Mason was unable to pull off the upset, falling to No. 7 Ohio State 3-1 in men's volleyball action on Sunday afternoon at John Linn Memorial Gym. Today's match was the Patriots first at home since a Jan. 27 victory against Lees-McRae. Since that win, Mason played its last six matches on the road.

After coming out on top in a back-and-forth opening game that featured 23 ties and seven lead changes, the Patriots were unable to take another game, losing the next three games by scores of 30-27, 30-23 and 30-26. With the loss, the Patriots fall to an even 5-5 overall this season, while the Buckeyes improve to 15-1 with the win.

Mason played far better than they did in the team's previous meeting on Feb. 17 at St. John Arena in Columbus, Ohio when the Buckeyes won in three games as the Patriots hit .100 and only had six team blocks in the entire match. In this meeting, the Patriots hit .308 as a team and registered a whopping 16.5 team blocks.

Redshirt freshman opposite hitter William Price led all players with 20 kills. Mark Burik, Kyle Swanson and Kyle Gramit also finished with double-digit kill totals. Setter Ryan Kwiatkowski led the Patriots with 37 assists. Senior libero Graham Sheppard had a team-high 12 digs and redshirt freshman middle blocker Erik Lanham had seven blocks to pace the Patriots.

Ohio State had a balanced attack with five players finishing with double-digit kills, led by Dan Meske's 18. Setter Daniel Mathews had a match-high 72 assists and Conor Martin led the Buckeyes with 12 digs.

George Mason returns to conference play when it hits the road to play Princeton in an EIVA Tait Division match on Friday, March 9 at 7 p.m.