FORT WAYNE, Ind. – The week of George Mason University's 12^th-ranked men's volleyball team got from bad to worse on Friday night because the Patriots suffered its third consecutive defeat in the hands of a more spirited and more focused Fort Wayne team.

MATCH NOTES

-Mason had its poorest offensive display of the season and hit only .049 as a team. Three Patriots finished with team-high five kills – redshirt sophomore middle blocker Langston Payne, freshman opposite hitter Bradley Creamer and freshman outside hitter Sam Greenslade – but redshirt sophomore middle blocker Garrett Kollar (4 kills) was most efficient in attack for Mason with a .571 hitting performance.

-Sophomore libero Seth Blevins led Mason's defense with match-high eight digs while Creamer's five-dig performance marked the best in his young career.
-Despite playing only in the third set, freshman outside hitter Hayden Wagner recorded career-high four kills for Mason and picked up the Patriots' only block of the match along with one of the two service aces they had.

-Despite Fort Wayne's nearly perfect performance, none of the Mastodons reached double digits in attack. They were led by Pelegrin Vargas with nine kills. After a balanced effort in every compartment, Fort Wayne had six players with at least four kills, five players with at least four digs, four players with at least four blocks, and three players than setter Michael Keegan (28 assists, 4 kills, 4 digs) with at least one assist.

HOW IT HAPPENED

-Fort Wayne came out fired up from the very start and certainly did not look like a 1-8 team going into the match, but the Patriots responded through Payne, who had three kills early on, the last of which gave Mason its first lead in the opening set, 4-3. Fort Wayne then went on a 5-1 run with the help of three straight blocks to build a three-point lead at 8-5. Blocking continued being key for the Mastodons in a set in which they had eight unanswered rejections at the net and another pair of those increased the home team's advantage to five at 11-6. With all the momentum on their side of the net, the Mastodons capitalized in other areas as well. Back-to-back service aces from Vargas (7 digs, 4 blocks) allowed Fort Wayne to double up Mason at 14-7 before the lead reached double digits when the Mastodons orchestrated a triple block against Greenslade, 18-8. Mason won two consecutive points late on to shave a little off of Fort Wayne's set-high 12-point cushion, but Vargas had the last say and restored it with consecutive kills that closed the set at 25-13.

-It took several swings and numerous digs, but Creamer finally put the ball away for a kill and put an end to the 6-2 run with which Fort Wayne's opened the second set. Another Vargas kill got his team in double digits with a four-point lead, but kills by Kollar and Creamer cut that lead in half at 11-9. Even though their opponent pulled away by five right away, the Patriots went on their set-best 3-0 run and won some momentum-swinging point to come within two at 16-14 and force the Mastodons' only timeout in the contest. When play resumed, chaos once again took over Mason's side of the net and numerous offensive and defensive miscues by the Patriots allowed Fort Wayne to go on a 9-3 run for the remainder of the set and return to the locker room with a two-set lead, 25-17.

-After helping out in the set-winning block before the intermission, at the start of the third set Colton Stone (6 kills, 5 digs, 3 blocks) became a victim of Wagner's and the Patriots' only block of the match, 1-0 Mason. That turned out to be the team's only lead because the Mastodons quickly recovered and went ahead with a block of their own from Graydon Schroeder (5 kills, 5 blocks) and Alex Dickmann (5 kills, 4 digs, 6 blocks), 2-1. The Greenslade kill that tied the score at 2 all was followed by five-straight Fort Wayne points that set the tone of the set. Mason worked hard to stay in the set and a mini run aided by a rare slump in Fort Wayne's camp allowed the Patriots to come within two at 14-12 on a Creamer kill. A few minutes later Mason had its opportunity to rally back when Negron aced his Puerto Rican compatriot Vargas to cut the lead to just one at 17-16; however, the event helped the Mastodons collect themselves instead of rattling them and it was Fort Wayne and not Mason that made the decisive run to win the set, 25-18. The win helped the Mastodons pick up some steam before they go into MIVA play next weekend.

NEXT ON THE COURT

The Patriots will only practice for the next two weeks before they head to Massachusetts for key EIVA battles against Harvard in the second weekend of February.