Fairfax, Va. – George Mason University's men's volleyball team was picked to finish the 2016 season second in the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association, according to the preseason poll in which the league's coaches participated.

No. 14 Mason received two first-place votes for a total of 58 points, only four points short of 17-time defending champion No. 10 Penn State, which was awarded the remaining six first-place votes and topped the poll.

Twenty points behind Mason sits Princeton with 38 points, which went into the 2015 EIVA Championship as the third seed. NJIT and St. Francis (Pa.), neither of which made the post-season last year, each had 35 points in the poll and are predicted to battle for the last spot to get in the conference tournament, which will take place April 21-23, 2016.

The biggest surprise is that Mason's 2015 semi-final opponent, Harvard, which finished the 2015 regular season in second place, is predicted to finish sixth with 33 accumulated points. The poll is rounded off by Sacred Heart with 19 points and the league's newcomer Charleston (W.Va.) with 8 points.