WHO: No. 11 Men's Volleyball vs. No. 2 Ohio State @ 2016 Men's National Collegiate Volleyball Championship
WHERE: Rec Hall, State College, Pa.
FINAL SCORE: Ohio State 3, Mason 1
KEY PLAYERS: Jack Wilson – 18 kills (team-high); Brian Negron – 12 digs (career-high), 29 assists; Johnny Gomez – 11 digs, 4 assists; Garrett Kollar – 6 kills, 2 solo blocks (match-high), 5 block assists (team-high)

State College, Pa. – George Mason University's men's volleyball gave No. 2 Ohio State a fight and took the opening set of the play-in match on Tuesday night, but the third-seeded Buckeyes took three-straight afterwards to advance to Thursday's national semi-final against No. 3 UCLA.

MATCH NOTES

-Redshirt junior outside hitter Jack Wilson carried the majority of the load in Mason's attack and finished with 18 kills on the night. In defense, sophomore setter Brian Negron and junior libero Johnny Gomez finished with double digits. The setter had a career-high performance with 12 digs, while the All-American Honorable Mention Gomez added 11. The two also combined for 33 of the Patriots' 40 assists in the match.

-AVCA First-Team All-American selections Nicolas Szerszen and Miles Johnson finished with double digits in attack for Ohio State, recording 20 and 17 kills, respectively. Szerszen completed the double-double with a match-high 16 digs, while setter Christy Blough contributed 12 in addition to his 48 assists.

-Mason looked shaky in the beginning of the first set and Ohio State capitalized on that to jump to a 6-0 start with the help of three service aces from Szerszen. The Patriots managed to recover earlier rather than later and tied the set at 9-9 with three consecutive kills by Wilson. Johnson and Szerszen started a 3-0 run for Ohio State that kept the Buckeyes in front for the majority of the remainder of the set. Mason fought back and tied the score at 18 with the team's first ace of the match, courtesy of junior outside hitter Christian Malias, to force Ohio State's first timeout of the contest. Johnson put the Buckeyes in front once again with a kill for 19-18, but it was his attack error that put the Patriots in front for the first time at 20-19. The change of momentum threw the Buckeyes off and they committed three additional errors for the remainder of the set, the last of which resulted in a block by Negron and redshirt senior Dom Edgley that closed the set at 25-22 in favor of Mason.

-The second began in a more contested fashion, but Ohio State demonstrated aggressive serving and solid blocking to go on a significant run that put the Buckeyes ahead 12-6. The Patriots responded immediately and capitalized on errors by OSU's All-Americans, two kills by Wilson and an ace by Edgley to score six unanswered points and tie the set at 12 all despite the Buckeyes taking a timeout after the first four points of the run. Head coach Pete Hanson's tactics then started kicking in and Ohio State won seven of the next nine points to grow the lead back to five at 19-14. The Buckeyes carried the momentum to pick up a set point at 24-19 and although a Wilson kill and a block by Negron and redshirt freshman middle blocker Garrett Kollar neutralized the first two, Johnson sealed the set at 25-21 and tied the match at set apiece.

-Mason still could not find an answer to Szerszen's attacks in the third set and kills by the Frenchman were at the heart of another OSU run that put the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association champion ahead 11-5. Then the Patriots' junior outside hitter Radoslav Popov contributed his first two kills in the match to add to consecutive errors by Blough and two Mason blocks that allowed the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association champs to come within two at 13-11. Head coach Jay Hosack's men continued the mid-set push and cut the lead to one at 14-13 on a block by Negron and Edgley on Christian Franceschi, just before the Buckeyes won four-straight to force a Mason timeout. After that, OSU's lead fluctuated between five and three – on a kill by Kollar, who finished the match with six kills and no attack errors, but the tournament's No. 3 seed kept their attacking composure late on and won the set 25-20.

-The fourth and final set was the closest on paper as it provided nine tied scores and three lead changes. Most of those, however, were early in the set and although the two teams entered double digits all square at 10-10, after that Ohio State went on a run during which it scored twice as many points as Mason to grab the largest lead of the set, 22-16. A kill by Franceschi for 24-18 gave the Buckeyes their first match point, but Mason demonstrated a resiliency that has become a characteristic of Hosack's team and score three-straight points to force his counterpart Hanson into a timeout at 24-21. Although the Buckeyes managed to close the set and match at 25-21, the Patriots walked off the court under thunderous applause from the rather large amount of fans who had made their way to Rec Hall to support the team on its return to the national stage after a 28-year pause.   

STAT BREAKDOWN

-Ohio State recorded 55 kills and hit .263 as a team in the match, which was significantly lower than the .397 performance in the early regular season meeting between both teams. Mason, on the other hand, accumulated 40 kills for overall attack of .110. The Patriots' average was seriously hurt by the third-set performance, in which the team managed only seven kills on a -.031 hitting.

-Last time the teams met, they accumulated 44 digs, which was three short of Mason's 47 digs in the play-in match, and eight below 52.

-Once again, nothing separated the teams in blocking as both the Patriots and Buckeyes recorded 10 team blocks. Mason's Kollar was the only player who finished the match with two solo blocks.

-Ohio State doubled Mason in aces, 6-3, a feat that came at the cost of 21 service errors, as opposed to Mason's only 10.