Men’s Volleyball Rises Above

By Broadside Staff Writer Brandon Simmons
Photo by Broadside Photographer Courtney McCarick

The No. 11 George Mason University men’s volleyball team dominated Rutgers-Newark with a 3-0 win at the Field House last Wednesday night. With the win, the Patriots improved to 9-5 overall and have won three of their last four games.

Mason controlled the first match, winning 30-21, as there was only one lead change and five ties. Mason ended the match with a 14-7 run after leading 16-14 at one point during the match. The match ended after Rutgers-Newark sophomore middle hitter Jon Keller committed an error on the serve, hitting the ball too long.

The second and third matches, however, were more competitive. Mason won the second match 30-28, but could never pull away from Rutgers-Newark like they did in the first match.

The match featured nine ties and two lead changes with the Patriots taking their largest lead at 16-10. The Scarlet Raiders responded with a 12-6 run, cutting the Mason lead to 23-22. From this point, every time Mason scored, Rutgers-Newark would come back and cut the lead to one, until they finally tied the game at 28.

But Mason rose to the challenge, scoring the final two points of the match, with junior outside hitter Kyle Gramit being responsible for the last point, scoring an ace.

In the third and final match, Mason was able to pull off a hard fought victory by the score of 30-28. The highlights of this match were five lead changes and 11 ties. After the Patriots tied the score at 17, they went on a 5-0 run to make it 22-17. However, Rutgers-Newark rallied and cut the lead to 24-22, but Mason extended the lead back to five, leading 27-22.

It appeared that Mason was finally ready to pull away for good, but the Scarlet Raiders had a 6-2 run, again cutting the lead to one at 29-28 and threatening the steal the match. But junior outside hitter Hudson Bates scored a kill to win the match for the Patriots and completed the sweep. Bates led the team with 10 kills on 16 swings (.438).

Bates pointed out that he was able to get “a lot of sets in transition, which is when it is a broken play. So, when I see that, a lot of times I’m just aiming for high hands and a lot of times I aim for that outside hand and it knocked off a lot of times. It (the ball) just bounced out of bounds; they couldn’t play it.”

Gramit added nine kills, as well as two aces. As a team, the Patriots shot 41-79 (.359), compared to the Scarlet Raiders shooting 42-86 (.256). Rutgers-Newark was led by sophomore outside hitter Nate Stott, who had a game-high 13 kills on 26 shots (.308).

Despite the sweep, coach Fred Chao was not happy with the Patriots’ performance.

“I don’t think we played very well at all,” Chao said. “We didn’t earn our points. We weren’t very efficient. We were just fortunate that they gave us more points than we gave them.”

Chao feels the team can improve in many areas.

“Our set location can be better,” Chao said. “Our hitting and our passing and our blocking from different aspects can be better. And we can serve a lot better.”

Sophomore setter Ryan Kwiatkowski, who led the team with 23 assists, agreed with Chao’s assessment of the game.

“We had breakdowns from every aspect really,” Kwiatkowski said. “Serving passes, setting, attacking, blocking and then things that don’t [involve] actually touching the volleyball.”

The next home game for the Patriots will take place in the Field House on Fri., March 7 at 7 p.m., when No. 1-ranked Penn State comes into town. This will be the second meeting between the Patriots and the Nittany Lions this season.

On Feb. 15, Penn State swept Mason 3-0 at University Park. To defeat Penn State, “Every aspect of our game has to be in the upper percentile of what we are able to perform,” Chao said.