WHO: Men's Volleyball vs No. 14 UC Irvine
WHERE: RAC Gym, Fairfax, Va.
FINAL SCORE: UC Irvine 3, Mason 2
KEY PLAYERS: Jack Wilson – 25 kills (match-high); Radoslav Popov – 9 kills, .364 hitting (team-high); Johnny Gomez – 13 digs (team-high)

Fairfax, Va. – George Mason University's men's volleyball team was close to knocking off its first ranked opponent this season after coming back from a set down twice against No. 14 UC Irvine, but could not execute well enough late on and eventually fell to the Anteaters in five sets on Tuesday night.

MATCH NOTES

-Redshirt junior outside hitter Jack Wilson was by no means intimidated by UC Irvine's size at the net and racked up a match-high 25 kills, the only Patriot to finish with double digits. Junior outside hitter Radoslav Popov had a solid performance in a quiet way, finishing with 9 kills and only one error, least among all starting hitters. Two players combined for more than half of Mason's digs on the night by finishing with double digits on the defensive end – junior libero Johnny Gomez with 13 digs and junior outside hitter Christian Malias with 12 digs.

-For the Anteaters, who played their third match in as many nights, Michael Saeta had 24 kills while hitting an impressive match-high .426, while David Parker added 14 while shining even more on the defensive end with 18 digs, most by any player who played in the contest.

-With the teams all square at 9 apiece in the first set, UCI went on a significant 6-0 run on Thomas Hodges' serving sequence, three of the points coming off Saeta kills. The lead then grew to seven at 19-12, forcing Mason's head coach Jay Hosack to take his second timeout of the set. Coming out of the huddle, Mason was given a lifeline by a triad of consecutive Anteater errors. Further hopes of a comeback arose when redshirt senior opposite hitter Paco Velez registered an ace after coming off the bench to narrow UCI's lead to 19-16. That is as much as Mason narrowed the margin before UCI eventually closed the set at 25-20 with two kills by Parker.

-An attack error by Wilson opened the second-set scoring in favor of the Anteaters, but the Midlothian, Va. native made up for it soon after by contributing four kills in Mason's 10-1 run that followed on Malias' and redshirt freshman middle blocker Garrett Kollar's serving sequences. The string of points forced UCI's head coach David Kniffin to call both of his two timeouts before the end of the second serving sequence in Mason's second-set rotation. The Patriots remained in control for the entire set and let UCI come within as few as five on a couple of occasions before capitalizing on a service error by Hodges to tie the match at a set apiece, 25-18.

-After both teams wasted two-point leads early in the third set, UCI was first to pull away by three at 15-12 in mid-set, resulting in a Mason timeout. In the following minutes, Wilson and Malias both registered aces for the Patriots, which triggered a switch of momentum in the set – the first one cutting the Anteaters' lead to one at 18-17 and the second leveling the score at 19 all. Both of those aces forced a timeout by UCI, the second one of which helped the Anteaters regain their composure and end the set on a 6-2 run and once again take a lead in the match.

-A mini run by Mason, which featured consecutive kills by Wilson and an error by UCI's setter Dante Chakravorti, marked the fifth lead change early in the fourth set and put the Patriots ahead, 9-8. A kill by Malias later gave Mason its largest lead of the set at 16-13, but immediately after the Anteaters went on a 4-0 run culminated by a Saeta ace and made it anyone's set once again, 17-16. Playing to stay in the match, Mason executed better in the closing stage and earned a double set point at 24-22. Saeta gave his team a chance to close the match by tying the score at 24-24 with a kill and ace, but ultimately the Patriots prevailed 26-24 with a kill by Wilson and a solo block by Kollar, which took a second-straight Mason match into a fifth set.

-Neither team could pull away until 6 all in the tiebreaker, but then UCI went on a 4-0 run, which proved decisive in the outcome of the contest. The Anteaters hit an impressive .615 in the final set while attacking errors hurt the Patriots late on and cost them the end of their four-match win streak with the final score of 15-10.

STAT BREAKDOWN

- Mason turned 54 attacks into kills, three more than UCI, but the Anteaters hit .236 as a team, slightly more efficient than the Patriots' .212.

-The defensive efforts also told the story of a close match, with UCI coming out on top in digs, 47-44.

-The Patriots were decreasingly affected by their kryptonite – serve errors – as the match progressed, but still accumulated six more than UCI, 23-17, while the Anteaters edged the Patriots in serve aces, 7-6.

-Mason's big men in the middle, Edgley and Kollar, split the team's four solo blocks in the match at two apiece, helping the Patriots outblock their opponents 11-8 on the night.

NEXT ON THE COURT

Hosack's team will stay at home to resume conference play on Friday, when new EIVA member Charleston (W.V.) comes for its historic first visit to the RAC.