Volleyball Ends Season With Loss to George Mason

All good things must come to an end.

The Harvard men’s volleyball team (11-8, 6-2 EIVA Hay) ended its successful turnaround season last night, falling 3-1 (29-31, 33-31, 19-30, 26-20) in the first round of the EIVA playoffs to George Mason (12-15, 5-7 EIVA Tait Division) at the Field House in Fairfax, VA. The eighth-seeded Crimson was led by co-captains Brady Weissbourd’s 23 kills and junior Gil Weintraub’s 56 assists.

“They’re a very good team and have been for a really long time,” Harvard coach Brian Baise said. “It was going to be a tough match going in, but certainly we were excited to be in the playoffs in a while. We competed extremely well, but at the end of the day, we just couldn’t quite find the points we needed.”

Last night’s match against the Patriots marked the first time the Crimson has appeared in the postseason since 2005. In a matter of just one year, Baise has turned a struggling Crimson volleyball program into a rising power in its division, capturing a share of the EIVA Hay title along the way.

After a tough loss to Rutgers-Newark last week, Harvard gave the fifth-seeded Patriots a run for their money. Even with injuries affecting the play of the Crimson’s two key offensive players—Weissbourd and senior libero Jeff Nathan—Harvard started out the game competitive, keeping up point-for-point with George Mason’s explosive offensive sets. After leading 7-4 early in the first set, the Patriots went off on a 5-0 run, capitalizing on perfectly placed sets by setter Ryan Kwiakowski and two errors from Weintraub and junior Erik Kuld.

“We had a pretty slow start, and serving was tough for us,” Weintraub said. “I think we made a few too many errors and we gave up critical points at certain times.”

George Mason held on to a sizable lead throughout the majority of the first set. But just when it appeared that the Patriots had the first set in the bag, the resilient Crimson came back with a run of its own, outscoring George Mason 9-1 to tie the game at 29-29. But a kill from junior Ben Nichols and a ball handling error by freshman Dan Schreff would leave the Patriots unscathed and give the host team its first set victory.

“The first game could’ve gone either way,” Baise said. “I thought we were going to pull it out, but [George Mason] has some really good players, and they were able to put the ball down on the court.”

The second set was also marked by short-run spurts, with Harvard taking a 14-12 lead after a 4-0 run. Weintraub and Rosier made timely blocks on the front line, making two consecutive blocks during that run.

With business taken care of on the defensive side of the court, freshman Matt Jones and Weissbourd took care of the rest. Two consecutive kills by Jones gave the Crimson a slim 22-18 lead, and it would be just enough for Harvard to pull out a 33-31 victory in the second set.

Like the two previous sets, the third was kept close early on, with Harvard down just two, 16-14. But George Mason would settle down and finish the set strong on a 11-4 scoring run.

“They started serving a little better and our passing wasn’t as strong,” Baise said. “We really needed to pass extremely well especially when we’re down. The third set was by far George Mason’s best game. We helped them out by making more errors than we should have.”

With the Crimson on the brink of elimination, the team turned to hitters Weissbourd and Jones for points. The two started off with easy kills, giving Harvard a 5-2 lead. However, the injury on Weissbourd began to take its toll in this crucial fourth set.

“There’s basically a big club on his left hand,” Baise said. “It definitely affected his defense, not so much his offense. He was hampered by it a little bit, and it hurt. He’s a real tough guy and he played through it, but there’s no denying that there were points that we gave away because of that injury.”

George Mason continued its strings of five-point runs in the fourth set. But the Crimson managed to answer this time. Down 17-19, it was now-or-never for Harvard, and a kill from Weissbourd ignited a Crimson run that gave the team a tight 23-22 lead. But even with Weissbourd’s outstanding efforts, the Patriots were simply too much for a depleted and injured Harvard squad to pull off the first round upset.

For now, the Crimson’s season ends here. But its success this year will hopefully be just the beginning of good things—and many championships—to come.

“I’m extremely proud of my players this year. We came together like I hoped they would,” Baise said.

“I think we’re really hopeful,” Weintraub said. “[Our returning players] will head us in the right directions. We have high expectations for next year.”—Staff writer Kevin T. Chen can be reached at ktchen@fas.harvard.edu