UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Penn State has the rematch it’s been waiting a whole year to get.
However, there was an unexpected added obstacle thrown into the Nittany Lions’ quest for a little revenge and national title chase.
No. 3 Penn State (25-3, 10-0) shrugged off a first-set loss to put away George Mason 19-25, 25-17, 25-22, 25-15 in the EIVA Championship Tournament semifinals at Rec Hall on April 20, 2023. The Lions next face second-seeded Princeton (14-11, 7-3) at 7 p.m. April 22 in search of the program’s 35th EIVA tournament title.
The Tigers spoiled the Lions’ 2022 season with a 3-2 upset in the semifinals, and with nearly all the Penn State lineup back, the Nittany Lions have been waiting for the rematch with Princeton.
Penn State had to shake off the loss of middle blocker Toby Ezeonu, who suffered an ankle injury midway through the first set. The junior and first-team All-EIVA selection entered the tournament second in the nation in hitting (.499).
Penn State still found plenty of offense led by a trio in their final weekend of volleyball in Rec Hall. The offense was led by two-time Uvaldo Acosta Memorial EIVA Player of the Year setter Cole Bogner, opposite Cal Fisher and outside hitter Brett Wildman.
Match Notes

• Penn State swept two 3-0 matches from both George Mason and Princeton during the regular season.
• Princeton
• Princeton has won the last two postseason meetings with Penn State, taking the 2022 semifinal and the 2019 final in five sets.
• Fisher surpassed 1,000 career kills and Bogner reached 4,000 career assists in the match.
• Penn State built an early 8-3 lead in the first, but a 7-0 George Mason run put the Patriots up 14-11 and they never lost the lead. It was on the final point, a Liam French kill, Ezeonu tried to block the swing by French and landed on a teammate’s foot to suffer the injury. The Lions, who at .335 lead the EIVA and rank sixth nationally in hitting, also were held to .095 hitting in the set.
• Penn State turned its game around in the second, taking the lead on the opening point and never losing it while hitting .560. Fisher put down 10 of his kills, plus an ace, in the second frame.
• The third was the tightest of the night with seven ties and four lead changes. The last of those ties was at 21-21, but a Fisher kill and a block for Bogner and Owen Rose on Omar Hoyos gave Penn State the lead for good. Fisher had eight more kills in the third, the last of which secured set point.
• The fourth was close at 17-14 before a 7-0 run mostly on Fisher’s serve put Penn State firmly in control. Fisher had a pair of aces during the run, and Penn State tallied six aces in the frame to go with .600 hitting. A kill from Rose ended the match.

Match stats
Penn State: 55 kills, .381 hitting, 10 aces, 36 digs, seven blocks
George Mason: 41 kills, .283 hitting, four aces, 28 digs, five blocks.
Fisher (PSU) 23 kills, .514 hitting, three aces
Wildman (PSU) 14 kills, .500 hitting, three aces, eight digs
Rose (PSU) six kills, .667 hitting, four blocks
Bogner (PSU) 45 assists, four blocks
Ryan Merk (PSU) 12 digs
French (GMU) 17 kills, .517 hitting
Hoyos (GMU) 14 kills, seven digs
Georgi Zahariev (GMU) 32 assists, seven digs
Colin Heath (GMU) seven digs
Sam Peters (GMU) three blocks
Post-match comments
Penn State coach Mark Pavlik
“You guys see it (Ezeonu) has got a boot on. Nothing broken, so we’ll see where he’s at. Right now, even the med people are saying, ‘Swelling and everything else goes down we’ll have a better diagnosis, hopefully in the next 24 to 48 hours.”
Cal Fisher
“Cole was putting me in a lot of good positions. We knew with their middle blocker, when we’re in perfect pass they would jump a lot if Cole was in perfect pass. Cole was able to feed me back, get me a lot of one-on-ones which makes my life pretty easy.”
Brett Wildman
“Obviously you never want to see one of your brothers go down, probably, quite literally the last thing you want to see during a game, but at the same time … it’s like, ‘He’ll live,’ it’s kind of like next man up, move on and I guess plug and chug.”
“We just want to win the championship. We don’t really care about anything else.”
George Mason coach Jay Hosack
“We made some adjustments blocking-wise, we made some adjustments serve-wise, trying to make them think about what was going on.”
“We knew all along (this season) we had the tools to be successful.”
Omar Hoyos
“We told ourselves we have to come out, it’s the No. 3 team in the country, we have to play every single point as if it’s the last one. We gave it everything every single point.”
“It’s taking he emotion, looking at it. We all looked at each other. We want to be in the same spot next year, and instead of losing winning, capitalizing on a few plays. That starts tomorrow, this weekend.”