WHO: Women's Volleyball vs. Duquesne
WHERE: RAC Gym, Fairfax, Va.
FINAL SCORE: Mason 3, Duquesne 2
KEY PLAYERS: Tiffany Clarke – 23 kills (career-high) (match-high), .500 hitting, 3 blocks; Jordan Glass – 9 kills, 9 digs, 3 blocks (career-high); Catie Espinoza – 30 digs (match-high); Bailey Williams – 14 digs

FAIRFAX, Va. – George Mason University's women's volleyball team and Duquesne played yet another down-to-the-wire five-set match on Friday evening and this time it was Mason that prevailed 3-2 for what was the Patriots' first Atlantic 10 Conference victory of the season.

MATCH NOTES

-Mason's senior opposite hitter Tiffany Clarke led all players on the court with 23 kills in the match, which tied her career-best performance set earlier this month. However, Clarke was much more efficient on Friday than she was at Davidson and needed 16 fewer attempts to achieve the feat, resulting in an impressive .500 hitting performance. Junior outside hitter Jordan Glass was head coach Jackie Simpson-Kirr's golden substitute of the night and contributed nine kills off the bench to follow the senior. Glass had nine digs on the defensive end and tied her career-high performance of three blocks for the second time in as many matches. Sophomore libero Catie Espinoza contributed big time for the win with match-high 30 digs, her seventh 20+ dig performance of the season.

-Madelynn Burnham led the Dukes with 13 kills which came off team-high 45 attack attempts. Molly Davet had four fewer kills on two fewer attempts and it was setter Dani Suiter who was Duquesne's most efficient attacker with .571 hitting for four kills. Davet compensated her relatively slow offensive night with team-high 24 digs and two block assists. Sammy Kline also finished in double digits defensively with 19 digs.

-Three kills by Clarke helped Mason jump off to a 5-2 start in the opening set, but Duquesne went on a 5-1 run that not only allowed the team to get back into the set but also made for its first lead in the match  – 7-6 on a Burnham kill. Good side-out plays by Mason did not allow the Dukes to build up on their advantage; on the contrary, the Patriots got back in the lead at 10-9 off a service ace by senior outside hitter Jessie Greenslade. Mason's lead reached three at 13-10 on an attack error by Duquesne's Abbie Trzeciak and gave Simpson-Kirr's players some comfort going into the second half of the set. It all changed when back-to-back kills from unlikely contributor Suiter started a 3-0 run for Duquesne that tied the set at 19 all, forcing a Mason timeout. A service error by Kline right out of the timeout was followed by another Burnham kill to turn the first set into a game to five. The Patriots showed stronger nerves in the closing stage and matched its 5-2 run from the start of the set to take the lead in the match when Clarke made it 25-22 with her sixth kill of the period.

-Duquesne had a 5-0 run early in the second set and Mason had a 4-0 run to neutralize its opponents, but ultimately the two teams went into double digits tied at 10 as a result of freshman outside hitter Bailey Williams' first kill of the night. Two kills by Burnham and a bad set by Mason helped Duquesne pull away at 13-10 and after that point the Patriots came within one only once, when Clarke and freshman middle blocker Katrina Santos blocked Davet for 16-15. In fact, Mason won only two additional points in the set, one of them being another Clarke kill, before the Dukes closed the set with consecutive kills from Burnham to convincingly win it 25-17.

-Mason could not have asked for a better start coming off the intermission as the Patriots won the first seven points of the third set. Greenslade's service sequence gave Duquesne all sorts of trouble early on and the Dukes had to wait for a Mason error to finally get on the board at 7-1. That point started Duquesne's best run of four-straight points that got them within three, 7-4. Instead of crumbling mentally, the Mason players kept their cool and responded with another 6-0 run that gave them a 13-4 lead after a kill by junior middle blocker Sydney Fanoga. This time the Dukes could not find a response and the Patriots' cushion only kept growing, reaching double digits on a solo block by Glass for 18-8. Glass also contributed two kills in Mason's final 5-1 run, which finally ended Duquesne's woeful third set at 25-12.

-Rather than Mason coming into the fourth set with all the momentum, it was Duquesne who had a better start to the period as all of the team's key players played a part in the Dukes' 5-0 initial run. Twice Clarke and once Santos got the Patriots within two after that, but good serving from Trzeciak helped Duquesne increase its lead to six after Simpson-Kirr had called her second timeout of the set, 13-7. Despite being pressed to the wall, Mason still managed to put together strings of points and got within two points of the Dukes on four separate occasions. In attempt to do that for the fifth time and to keep its hopes for the set alive, Mason committed an attack error that made the score 22-18 Duquesne. The Dukes won the following three points as well and took the match into a fifth set with a block by Maddie Bazelak and Kori Johnson for 25-18.

-Although consecutive errors by Mason allowed Duquesne to tie the score at 2 all in the decisive fifth set, it was the Patriots who showed more desire and better execution in the following minutes, resulting in a 7-1 run on senior setter Caitlin Hipsher's and Glass' serving sequences. Little changed despite the teams changing sides and Duquesne calling two timeouts and a kill by freshman outside hitter Mikala Wells for 15-6 finally put a win in the Patriots' A-10 record column and avenged the five-set loss to the Dukes in last year's Senior Night.

 STAT BREAKDOWN

-Mason was both the more productive and the more efficient attacking team in the match, putting away 56 kills and hitting .213 as a team. Duquesne managed 44 kills on a .134 hitting performance.

-The defensive battle was decided by a smaller margin but went the Patriots' way as well, 79-73 in digs. Although each team had one solo block in the match, the Patriots linked up better at the net defensively and outblocked the Dukes 8-6.

-Seniors Greenslade (3) and Hipsher (2) combined for five of Mason's seven service aces in the match. In Duquesne's camp only Camryn Vecera (2) had multiple direct points from service as her team went on to record a total of six such points.

NEXT ON THE COURT

Mason will host La Salle tomorrow for Senior Night as Greenslade, Clarke and Hipsher play their last home game for the Patriots. First serve is at 7 p.m.