Men's Volleyball Caps Regular Season with Win

By Connect Mason Sports Director Damien Sordelett
Photo by Broadside Photographer Mahmoud Lababidi

Having already wrapped up the second seed in next week's Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association tournament, the George Mason men's volleyball team had two goals in mind: to finish off the season with a win for the seniors at home and to maintain momentum heading into the playoffs.

Consider both goals achieved.

Using a five-point streak late in the third game, the 12th-ranked Patriots (19-7, 9-3 EIVA Tait) were able to complete a 3-0 (30-26, 30-27, 30-25) sweep of the New Jersey Institute of Technology Friday night at the Field House before 249.

“Being able to play and not drop a game is important to do that when we can," George Mason coach Fred Chao said. “We want to go into the semifinals feeling like we have done everything that we can.”

The Patriots were in for a fight with the Highlanders of NJIT (11-13, 4-8 EIVA Tait), as both teams played close throughout all three games. It'd be several runs by the Patriots during the middle stages of the games that would tell the story.

In the third and deciding game, Mason jumped out early and scored the first six points. However, instead of capitalizing and putting the game away, the Highlanders scored 14 of the next 22 points to tie the contest.

“It made the game a little bit more challenging for us. The same way that we gave up six points, we fought back and tied up the game," said NJIT assistant coach Jose Reynaldo Martins. "It was a big lead and they didn’t know how to take advantage of it.”

The Patriots did however take advantage of a career day from Mark Burik. The senior outside hitter recorded seven services aces on the night, a personal career high and the third highest total in school history. Those service points would be a telling point of the contest.

“It just came down to a couple of points where their servers got like six or seven points on their serves," said NJIT middle hitter Amobi Armstrong, who recorded 12 kills and seven digs on the night.

Fellow senior Hudson Bates would have a solid day as well, recording nine kills and six of the team's 29 blocks. Those blocks were key in stopping NJIT's runs.

“The reason they got a good run on us was because we were missing our blocking assignments," said outside hitter Bates. "We made a few corrections, started blocking a few more balls, started passing a little bit better which made our offense run better.”

Those errors could possibly be something that haunt the Patriots, who have a bye until the semifinal round on Thursday, April 24 in State College, Penn. The Patriots know that starting and finishing strong will be key to winning the conference title.

“It was mostly mental mistakes by our part, not really getting our platform together for passing," said junior opposite hitter Kyle Gramit, who recorded 14 kills and five blocks. "Once we got everything going, there are not too many teams I think that can stop us once we’re getting our streak going.”