CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The George Mason men's volleyball team dropped the first set of its match against Harvard, but responded to win the next three as it topped the Crimson, 3-1, on Saturday afternoon at the Malkin Athletic Center.
The Patriots completed a weekend sweep of EIVA opponents with the 22-25, 25-23, 25-16, 25-22 win, improving to 14-11 overall and 10-3 in the conference. Harvard fell to 14-8 overall and 7-4 in the EIVA.
Harvard took the first point in the first set and never trailed the rest of the way. The Patriots tied the score on several occasions and remained within a point at 11-10, but a 5-0 run by the Crimson put them in control, 16-10. Mason ended the streak with a 4-0 run of its own to pull back to within two points, 16-14, but it was all the closer they would get as Harvard held them at bay the rest of the way to win the set, 25-22.
Mason slowly built to a four point lead, 11-7, in the second set and extended it to as many as six points, 14-8. Maintaining a five point advantage at 16-11, Harvard found its way back into the set with a 5-0 run to knot the score at 16-16. The lead exchanged hands several times down the stretch before arriving at a 21-21 draw. Mason then used a service ace from Javier Perez and a HU error to take back the lead, 23-21. The Patriots held on for the win, closing on a kill by Mark Jones to take the set, 25-23.
It was another close set early in the third, but a key 5-0 run by the Patriots as they trailed 9-8 put them ahead, 13-9. The Crimson worked their way back into the set pulling to within a point, 15-14, but Mason closed with a 10-2 scoring advantage to cruise to the 25-16 set triumph.
Playing to a 3-3 draw in the fourth, Mason used a 3-0 scoring spurt to take a 6-3 lead. However, a 7-0 run from the Crimson put HU back in control 10-6. The Patriots chipped away at the lead and pulled back to within a point on two occasions, but Harvard was able to respond to each Mason challenge to extend its lead back to three points, 18-15. Mason continued to put pressure on the Crimson, eventually tying the set at 18-18 with a 3-0 run. After a Harvard timeout, the Crimson captured the next two points to take back the lead at 20-18, but a 5-0 Mason run put the Patriots ahead for good (23-20) as they went on to win 25-22.
Andrew Dentler led the Mason offense with 13 kills, and Jones and Michael Kvidahl added 12 apiece. Javier Perez dished out a match-best 49 assists, while defensively Max McFarland had 18 digs and Shaun Sibley and Pat Sibley tallied four blocks apiece.
Nick Madden had a match-high 15 kills for Harvard, Rob Lothman had 39 assists and Caleb Zimmick chipped in a match-high seven blocks.
The Patriots will take a weekend off before concluding regular season action at Princeton on April 20.
