Box Score by Benny Benton
FAIRFAX, Va. – An upset-minded Barton College men's volleyball team captured the second set of its match against NCAA Division I George Mason University Friday night and led early in the third frame 5-1 before the Patriots rallied to win the set by two points and eventually claim a four-set win over the Bulldogs, 25-14, 25-27, 25-23, 25-14, in the Recreation and Athletic Complex.
Freshman Chad Stanback Jr. matched a season-high with 13 kills for Barton (2-5), while junior Zach McCalla added nine spikes. Libero Michael McMahon, a junior transfer who ranks third in NCAA Division I-II in digs per set, increased his average with a match-high 22 digs, the most of his brief career as a Bulldog.
Jack Wilson produced a match-high 14 kills and added five service aces for the Patriots (3-2), while Paco Velez added 11 spikes while hitting .500. Jackson Carr delivered 42 assists, and Hunter Stevens contributed nine blocks for GMU.
George Mason used five aces in the first set, including three by Wilson in a key stretch of five straight points midway through the first set, to easily claim the opening frame, 25-14. The Patriots hit .263 in first set, while Barton struggled to a negative percentage (-.158) in falling behind 1-0.
The Patriots used consecutive kills by Wilson on their way to a quick 5-2 advantage to open set two, and GMU still enjoyed that three-point margin at 17-14 following a Barton attack error. However, a kill by Stanback started a 6-0 run by the Bulldogs that included a block by Tanner Medina and an ace by McCalla.
George Mason rallied to tie the set at 20-all, and the two sides traded points until 23-all. A kill by McCalla gave Barton a set point, but a kill by Stevens tied the match again at 24-all. Another Stevens kill put the Patriots on set point, but an attack error by Wilson moved the match back into a tie at 25-all, and two more GMU attack errors helped the Bulldogs wrap up the set to tie the match at 1-all.
Consecutive kills by Stanback lifted Barton to a quick 5-1 advantage in set three, but with the Bulldogs leading 6-2, the Patriots used kills by Radoslav Popov and Velez to start a 10-3 run. Popov also had two of his seven blocks during the spurt.
After a timeout, Barton used kills by Ladislav Lelkes and McCalla, a block by Medina and Stanback, and an ace by Federico Pagliara to tie the match at 13-all. The two sides tied twice more before GMU pulled away to a three-point cushion at 18-15. A kill by Stanback and an attack error by the Patriots helped Barton close to within a point at 19-18, and the Bulldogs still trailed by just one point at 22-21 following a Wilson service error.
George Mason used a kill by Velez and a block by Popov and Stevens to reach set point at 24-21, but the Bulldogs fought back once more, forcing GMU into a pair of errors to close within one at 24-23. However, Carr set Stevens for a kill to end the set, giving the Patriots a 2-1 match lead.
In the fourth set, GMU used a service ace by Ryan Rosenmeier and three service errors by the Bulldogs to jump out to an early 6-3 lead and was never seriously challenged from there. Barton closed to within two points twice, the last time at 8-6, but the Patriots went on an 8-2 run to put the set and the match away.
Velez had six kills in the final frame for GMU, which hit .269 in the set after managing just .070 and .139 in the previous two frames. Barton had just five total kills in the last set, hitting .037 in the process.
The Bulldogs return to Conference Carolinas play next week, visiting Pfeiffer University on Tuesday night before returning home for a pair of matches against King University and Lees-McRae College next weekend.
