Men's Volleyball Team Claims Huge Road Win, Controls EIVA Fate Entering Final Weekend

Saturday, April 8

Fairfax, Va.

7:00 PM

Princeton University

11-12, 7-5EIVA

George Mason University

13-12, 6-6EIVA

Team	1	2	3	4	Final F
Princeton	25	17	25	25	3
George Mason	22	25	23	16	1

Photo by: Beverly Schaefer

Men's Volleyball Team Claims Huge Road Win, Controls EIVA Fate Entering Final Weekend

April 08, 2017 | Men's Volleyball

Box Score

Last weekend was the kind of road trip that could bury a team. Two devastating two-point, fifth-set losses — including one that followed a match ball at Penn State — left Princeton mired in a tough hole during the final sprint towards the EIVA playoffs. They could have spent the next few days wondering what went wrong.

They didn't. Instead, head coach Sam Shweisky found morale to be as high as it was all season, because his team had found its early-season form, and it felt like something special was coming.

Saturday night, in the home of the reigning EIVA champion George Mason, special certainly came.

Princeton (11-12, 7-5 EIVA) grabbed the win it needed badly, outplaying George Mason in two tight sets and then running away in the fourth for a 25-22, 17-25, 25-23, 25-16 victory over the Patriots. That win, combined with a flurry of other results within the league this weekend, moves the Tigers into third place by themselves with two matches to go in the EIVA.

The Tigers will host both Harvard (Friday, 7) and Sacred Heart (Saturday, 4) next weekend in Dillon Gym, and both will be streamed live on the Ivy League Digital Network. If Princeton wins both, it will be assured a top-three seed in the postseason. Anything else, and it could fall to a wild array of tiebreakers, considering four other teams will enter the weekend with 6-6 records in league play.

Princeton entered control of its own destiny with one of its best all-around performances of the season Saturday night. Freshman Parker Dixon led the Tigers with 15 kills, and he added six digs and four blocks, while the middle duo of George Huhmann and Junior Oboh combined for 20 kills, 13 blocks and three service aces. Sophomore libero Corry Short had 10 digs, while senior Jonah May added 42 assists and, in all likelihood, the most important kill of his career — after George Mason rallied late in the third to get within one, May ended the comeback with a kill to secure a 25-23 win.

The Tigers were never threatened in the fourth and clinched the season sweep of the reigning EIVA champion with a 25-16 win.