WHO: Men's Volleyball vs No. 15 Ball State
WHERE: RAC Gym, Fairfax, Va.
FINAL SCORE: Ball State 3, Mason 2
KEY PLAYERS: Jack Wilson – 29 kills (career-high); Christian Malias – 13 kills, 9 digs (match-high); Brian Negron – 54 assists (career-high)

Fairfax, Va. – Two Patriots registered career-high performances as George Mason University's men's volleyball team came close to take the scalp of its first ranked opponent this season, but No. 15 Ball State managed to come back from two sets behind to win the five-set thriller in the RAC on Saturday night.

MATCH NOTES

-Redshirt junior outside hitter Jack Wilson left where he picked up against IPFW on Friday and registered a career-best, match-high 29 kills for Mason while taking nearly half of the team's swings over the course of the match. Junior outside hitter Christian Malias aided the offensive effort with 13 kills, but had a huge contribution on the defensive end as well with match-high 9 digs. Sophomore setter Brian Negron did a fantastic job to run the Patriots' attacking efforts and picked up career-high 54 assists against the Cardinals.

-Unlike Mason, which went through the contest with the same seven-man rotation, Ball State fielded 13 players in the match. Only one of them, junior Brendan Surane, reached double digits in attack with 12 kills. He and two other players, sophomore Mitch Weiler and redshirt junior Edgardo Cartagena, led the Cardinals in defense with 4 digs apiece.

-After an even start of the first set, Mason was first to pull away when a kill by Wilson gave the Patriots an 8-5 lead. Ball State fought back and tied the score at 14, the first of three tied scores for the remainder of the set. Another kill by Wilson was followed by his ace to give Mason a two-point lead at 18-16, but it wasn't until freshman outside hitter Kyle Barnes' serving sequence that the Patriots built a significant five-point lead that allowed them to comfortably close the set at 25-19.

-An ace by Negron for 1-0 set the pace for a 5-1 Mason run to start the second set, but a well-timed timeout allowed Ball State to recover and match the run to tie the set at 6. The teams exchanged points for a while, but multiple attack errors by the Cardinals aided a 7-1 run by the Patriots in mid-set to give Mason an 18-12 lead. Ball State came within five on several occasions, but Mason had all the momentum and cruised to a two-set lead at 25-18.

-It was Ball State's turn to start the set with an ace – in fact two – by freshman Parker Swartz, but Mason quickly recovered and took the lead at 5-4 with a kill by redshirt senior middle blocker Dom Edgley. A 4-0 run by Ball State turned a two-point Mason run into a two-point Cardinal run at 11-9 and marked the beginning of momentum switch. The Patriots came within one at 13-12 with an ace by redshirt freshman middle blocker Garrett Kollar, but another 6-1 run by the visiting team gave them their largest lead of the night at 19-13, which allowed them to pull one set back at 25-20.

-The fourth set was as close as it could get with 14 tied scores before Ball State pulled away by three on Surane's serving sequence late on, 21-18. The Patriots were far from done playing and got back on level terms with a kill by Malias, an ace by Edgley, and an attack error by the Cardinals' junior Mike Scannell, forcing Ball State's head coach Joel Walton to call a timeout. The break halted Mason's momentum and the Cardinals won four consecutive points out of the huddle to take the set 25-21 and take the match into a tie-breaking fifth set.

-Consecutive kills from Malias and Wilson gave Mason its only two-point lead at 5-3 in the fifth set, but Ball State responded with three-straight points to retake the lead at 6-5. A serve error by Ball State made it 6-6, but that was the last time the two teams were on even terms before the Cardinals went on to finish the match on a 9-3 run and complete the impressive comeback at 15-9 in the final set.

STAT BREAKDOWN

-Despite the win, Ball State's attack was second best in the contest as the Cardinals recorded only 33 kills while hitting .224 as a team. Mason, on the other hand, recorded 58 kills and hit slightly better than its opponent at .262.

-The Patriots dug nearly twice as many balls as Ball State, 32-17.

-Both teams recorded 5 aces apiece, but the Patriots committed 10 more serve errors than the Cardinals, 31-21.

-Ball State's size at the net played a huge role for the win and the Cardinals outblocked Mason 12.5-8.

NEXT ON THE COURT

The Patriots will return to the RAC next Friday, when it welcomes Conference Carolinas member Pfeiffer at 7 p.m.