UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Penn State men's volleyball team saw its five-match win streak come to an end with a three-set loss (16-25, 23-25, 18-25) to #15 George Mason in its home finale Saturday evening at Rec Hall.
The Nittany Lions (13-13) are now 9-3 in EIVA play with just two matches remaining.
George Mason (15-8) improved its league record to 8-4 with the win.
HOW IT HAPPENED
George Mason got the first punch in by getting out to a 7-1 advantage before a Henrik Falck Lauten kill stopped the rally. The Patriots did not let up as they tacked on a service ace to lead 13-6. George Mason made its presence known at the net with 4.5 blocks in the frame.
The closest Penn State would come was six points at 22-14 after a Brett Wildman kill. George Mason outhit the Nittany Lions .500-.250 to win 25-16 in the first set.
Penn State settled in during the second set with a 9-6 lead after a Wildman ace and a George Mason overpass fed Jason Donorovich for a kill. George Mason rallied back to retake the lead at 13-12 and added a service ace to make Penn State take a timeout.
The latter end of the set was an entertaining back-and-forth battle. A total of 15 tied scores and three lead changes brought George Mason to a set point at 24-23. After a wild sequence, the Patriots' Jack Reese sent an attack off that glanced off Donorovich's block attempt to claim the set and put George Mason ahead 2-0.
While the Nittany Lions hit .484 in the frame, the Patriots still edged them with a .650 clip.
The third set was another close affair for the first half of the set, but Penn State had more of the same troubles defending against the hot-hitting Patriots' attack. The last tied score in the set was 7-7 before Mason took an 8-7 lead and never looked back.
George Mason continued to pass and serve well in the third set and completed 73 percent of its sideout tries in the third frame.
HEAR IT FROM THEM
Head Coach Mark Pavlik
- "Matches like these are really easy to sum up. When we don't block and we don't dig balls, it makes the opponent, whoever they are, feel invincible. In the men's game, you pass and serve, and the game is won or lost at the net when everything balances out."
- "I thought we served the ball okay; we knocked them off the net. We didn't have the aces that we would've liked to have, and even though we knocked them off the net, we didn't convert on those serves. Like I said, this loss is really easy to sit back and say 'Okay. We have to block and play defense better.'"
- "Hats off to Mason because they kept rolling. We only blocked them twice and they only hit five balls out of bounds in 70 swings. They kept the offensive pressure on and we weren't able to raise our execution level of blocking defensively to counteract that. For me, I think that was the match right there."
Jason Donorovich
- "Our volunteer assistant, Dillan [Bennett] worded it really well after set number two. He said, 'Right now, George Mason just wants to win more than we do.' That's, obviously, tough to hear, because every match you go into, you want to win. But every team that plays us, no matter where we are—home or away—they want to come in and [beat] us, and if we don't match that, we're going to be on our heels at one point in the match, at least."
- "We just have to go in and really be ready to fight—fight for our lives and just want to win the match with all we have. We have to fight for every point, for every ball, and if we lack that toughness, we're going to be in trouble, especially against a big, physical team like Mason. We didn't come out very strong in that first set; I think we were down 6-1, and we were trying to get back in it. We played good volleyball after that, but we were already on our heels. We have to come in and want to [hand it to] these teams."
MIKE ANDERSON MAN OF THE MATCH
- On his senior day, Matthew McLaren was named Penn State's top player with 11 kills and a .348 hitting percentage (11-2-23). He also had two digs.
GAME NOTES
- Freshman Brett Wildman matched McLaren with 11 kills and hit .350 (11-4-20) with a service ace.
- Henrik Falck Lauten had seven kills and seven digs, while Jason Donorovich added five kills on 10 attacks (.300, 5-2-10).
- Cole Bogner had 25 assists and Luke Braswell added 12.
- George Mason held significant edges on the service line and at the net. The Patriots had eight aces versus eight service errors and had 9.0 team blocks. The Nittany Lions managed just two aces against 10 errors and had just 2.0 team blocks.
- George Mason had just seven attacking errors as a team and hit .514 for the match (43-7-70). Penn State hit .333 (40-13-81).
- The Nittany Lions have yet to determine their seeding in the four-team field for the EIVA Tournament, but the all four spots have been claimed: Penn State, George Mason, Princeton, and Saint Francis.
NEXT UP
The Nittany Lions wrap up their 2019 regular season with a pair of matches on the road next weekend, April 12-13. Penn State will play at NJIT Friday evening at 6 p.m. and Princeton Saturday evening at 7 p.m..