The George Mason men's volleyball team won just eight
fewer points than the Lewis University Flyers on Saturday but those eight
points were enough for Lewis to take a 3-0 victory over the Patriots. The
Patriots got strong matches from Mark Jones
, Eric Lucas
and Michael Kvidahl
but
were unable to pick up the road win, falling 25-22, 25-23, 25-22.
Jones had 16 kills and six digs while Lucas had nine
kills and five digs as each hit better than 30 percent. Kvidahl added 10 kills.
Jay Petty led Lewis with 16 kills and a .481 attack percentage while Matt
Galllik had eight kills and no errors on 12 attacks.
Mason trailed Lewis several times in the first set.
Lewis was up 10-7 before Mason made it 11-11. The Flyers later led 15-12 but
Mason trimmed it to a one-point game at 21-20. But Lewis rolled off three
straight points to take set point and after a Brandon Joyner
kill and a Lewis
attack error, Petty put the ball on the floor to end the first set.
The second set saw 14 ties as Mason led frequently
throughout but couldn't pull away. The Patriots were up 8-5 but then found themselves
tied repeatedly from 9-9 through to 17-17. The Patriots nearly pulled away as
Jones had a kill and Lewis had back-to-back attack errors to give Mason a 19-17
edge. After a Lewis timeout, Mason was able to go up 21-19 before Casey Bennett
served three straight points to five Lewis a 23-22 lead. With the score knotted
at 23-23, Piotr Dabrowski
had a service error and the Flyers capitalized behind
a Petty kill to make it a 2-0 match.
In the third set, Mason led early, until the Flyers
tied the match at 8-8. From then on they consistently had a one-to-two point
lead. The final tie came at 19-19. Gallik and Petty had two straight kills to
make it 21-19 and after the teams traded service errors, Jones had an attack
error to give the Flyers their largest lead of the set, 23-20. From there the
Flyers had two service errors and two kills to close out the set and the match.
The Patriots will return to action next weekend when
they host Lees-McRae on Friday at 7 p.m.
