April 10, 2009

Box Score

FAIRFAX, Va. - Facing its final point of the match, the George Mason men's volleyball team rallied from a two-sets-to-one deficit to defeat the Springfield College Pride in an EIVA Tait Division match on Friday evening at the Field House. Final set scores from the victory were 30-28, 24-30, 21-30, 31-29, 15-12.

With the win, the Patriots improve to 11-13 overall and 4-5 in EIVA Tait Division matches. Springfield College falls to 14-9 overall and 6-6 in conference matches. The Pride are one spot ahead of Mason in the conference standings in fourth place. Both teams have already clinched a berth in the EIVA Championship Tournament.

After coming from behind to take the first set 30-28, the Patriots stumbled in the next two sets, losing 30-24 and 30-21 to fall behind 2-1 in the match. Springfield College never trailed in its third-set victory.

In the fourth set, the Pride appeared poised to put an end to the match after taking a 29-28 lead when Luke Maloney's attack sailed wide for the Patriots. Facing match point, George Mason head coach Fred Chao took a timeout and it paid off as the Patriots rebounded to take the next three points to extend the match to a fifth set. The final point came off an attack error by Springfield's AJ Nally.

The momentum from Mason's fourth-set win carried over to the fifth as the Patriots got off to a hot start, jumping out to a 4-1 lead to force a timeout by Springfield College. The Pride came back to tie the score twice but Mason never relinquished its lead, closing out the set 15-12 when freshman Andrew Dentler put down a Brandon Joyner set for his 16th kill of the night. Ben Nichols and Lance Rogers came up big in the final set. Nichols finished with five kills, two digs and two blocks, while Rogers totaled three kills and two blocks.

Maloney led the Patriots with 17 kills in the match. Dentler finished with 16, Nichols had 12 and Gramit had 11. Ryan Kwiatkowski and Brandon Joyner split duties at setter, finishing with 62 assists between the two of them. Kwiatkowski registered 39 assists, while Joyner had 23. Sophomore Eric Lucas had a team-high nine digs.

Cal Palumbo and Mark Ribeiro both recorded 17 kills in a losing effort for Springfield College. Ribeiro hit .294 with eight digs and three blocks. Palumbo hit a sizzling .500 on 26 swings with four digs and six blocks.

George Mason will host the Dig Pink Breast Cancer Awareness Match tomorrow at 7 p.m. against defending national champion Penn State at the Field House. Commemorative George Mason Dig Pink t-shirts will be sold at the event, with proceeds from the sales to benefit the Side-Out Foundation to aid in its quest to raise money to fund research in the ongoing fight against breast cancer. Saturday's match will be the first-ever Dig Pink event hosted by a men's volleyball team.