FAIRFAX, Virginia – The George Mason men's volleyball team lost their first match in their last five to No. 15 Ball State.  The Cardinals took straight sets tonight at the RAC in a match where George Mason was without Outside Hitter, Radoslav Popov.

The Cardinals won with set scores of 25-18, 25-18, and 25-20. With tonight's loss, the Patriots move to 4-3, while Ball state also moves to 4-3.

The first set didn't start well for the Green and Gold, with Ball State going up 9-2 early on.  The Patriots could not recover from five quick attack errors.  Matt Leske led the Cardinals with three kills in that first set; he also had zero errors.   Jack Wilson led Mason with three kills as well in this set. 

The second set was extremely close in the beginning with Mason even leading 7-6.  However, after a couple errors from the Patriots and a kill from Matt Leske, the Cardinals took the lead back 15-10.  Ball State led the rest of the way and ended up winning the set 25-18.

The third set was a tight one.  After going down 19-12, George Mason fought back and even got the lead down to just three thanks to kills by Jonathan Lutz, Hunter Stevens, Christian Malias, and Paco Velez (22-19).  However, it wasn't enough, as Ball State went on to win the match with a set score of 25-20.

Christian Malias and Jonathan Lutz led the Patriots with nine kills each in the match. Meanwhile, Jackson Carr dished out a team-high 15 assists.  Carr also helped out on the defensive end, adding five digs.

Kevin Owens led the Cardinals with nine total kills on only 11 attack attempts.  Graham Mcilvaine had a match-high 28 assists.  Meanwhile, Marcin Niemczewski led Ball State with a match-high eight digs on defense.