Women's volleyball gets by game-one curse

Coach Pat Kendrick's George Mason University Patriots were on a 14-game winning streak until Monday's knockdown, drag-out kicking, screaming, and often times cursing, battle in The Pyramid.

Still undefeated, the 19-0 Cal State Long Beach women's volleyball team wore down the Patriots during two hours and 15 minutes of game time.

"It felt good," said outside hitter Jessica Alvarado, about beating George Mason 15-17, 15-8, 15-13, 15-6. "It was a dogfight out there. They're a real tough team. They have a lot of foreign players and they played well."

Alvarado, a sophomore from San Antonio, smashed 14 kills out of 40 attacks past the mostly foreign-born (and mostly senior) Patriots.

The 49ers lost game one by a close margin, and did not gain the lead in the second until Alvarado jammed a kill past the Patriots defense to bring the score to 9-8. The Beach then scored two more, including a sleight-of-hand dunk by team captain Misty May.

"That was a really hard fought match," coach Brian Gimmillaro said. "I thought we had many opportunities to win the first game. The third game became the test.

"If you give away opportunities against a good team you're going to have to overcome something, and that's what we did in that third game with the comeback," he said.

The Patriots' coaching staff had been constantly reminding the green clad team from Virginia to "watch the setter, watch the setter." Then, near the end of game one, the ball flew from the fist of May. The loud smack coming from a spot on the floor in the middle of the Patriots' defense was 49er point No. 10. May had another triple-double with 10 kills, 62 assists, 18 digs and 1 service ace to top it off.

"She (May) set me out of this world tonight," Alvarado said.

"We knew that their whole team was really athletic and had good ball control," Kendrick said of the 49ers after her team's loss. "It's always good to play somebody in the top 10, and we look forward to it. Offensively, we broke down and we needed to be more offensive."

"We've got a rule that you can be tired at Christmas season. Were not kidding, you can be tired tonight now, but you can't be (during the game)," Gimmillaro said. "We say that a lot. It's OK to be tired; you just can't play tired."

Out of 13 George Mason players, six are from other countries, such as Hungary, the Czech Republic and Canada. The only other team to beat the Patriots was 15th-ranked Washington in the second match of the season.

"She (Kendrick) left her team and came out to watch us play against Irvine," Gimmillaro said. "They took this match very seriously. She flew across the country to watch us play. To scout us not from film but, in person. That's how big a game it was for them."

The match was mixed with the heavy use of taunting expletives which added a colorful punctuation to the many sideouts.

"As soon as it happened the refs should have taken charge right away," Gimmillaro said about the cursing. "There's no need for that in the sport."

Officials and coaches are responsible for eliminating such behavior, he said.

"I was getting tired of (the taunting)," May said. "Last year, I don't think our team had the attitude. We learned from last year. We weren't going to take it."

"But I did enjoy [when] in the last game, where we had the 11- 2 lead, one of their players said something, and our whole team and bench laughed," Gimmillaro said. "It was a good win for us."