After finishing the season strong, the Harvard men’s volleyball team will challenge George Mason on Thursday night in the first round of the EIVA conference tournament, hosted by Penn State.

The Crimson (17-8, 10-4 EIVA) enters the tournament as the third seed, while the Patriots (15-11, 11-3) are ranked second in the conference.

“We feel pretty good right now,” Harvard coach Brian Baise said. “We’ve been playing some really good volleyball and have been great in practice. Despite some rough patches here and there, we’ve been pretty consistent, so I think we have a great shot.”

The two teams met twice during the regular season, once at each venue, and both matches resulted in George Mason victories. The Patriots are the only team to beat the Crimson twice this season.

“George Mason is a really tough team,” junior co-captain Nick Madden said. “They are probably one of the tougher opponents remaining in the tournament.”

In the first encounter, the Patriots swept Harvard on their own court, dominating throughout the match. In that contest, George Mason’s hitters posted a .323 hitting percentage, well above the Crimson’s .146 mark. In addition, the Patriots tallied 8.5 blocks to Harvard’s 3. The Crimson did not score more than 20 points in any of the three games.

In the second match, Harvard came out with urgency, and the contest initially looked like it would have a different result from the first of the series.

In the first set, the Crimson secured 18 hits on its way to a 25-22 victory. But after George Mason took a close second game, Harvard fell apart, dropping both of the next two sets, 25-16 and 25-22, respectively, and losing the match. The Crimson’s hitters notched a kill percentage of .364 in the first set, .292 in the second, .138 in the third, and .088 in the fourth, emblematic of the team’s rapid decline through the match.

“There is a lot of stuff that we need to do better,” Baise said. “We need to receive their serves well, we need to play good defense in the back row, and if we can do that and stop them from getting easy points, then I think we can match up really well with them.”

Harvard had trouble matching the Patriots’ service and hitting production in the two matches. Over the course of the series, the Crimson has had 4 aces and 19 errors, while George Mason has had 10 aces and 23 errors. This, combined with the Patriots’ 97 kills and 31 errors (to Harvard’s 80 and 41), has contibuted to the one-sided outcome.

“George Mason has a really deep lineup,” Madden said. “They serve well and they hit hard, but I think we have the weapons to beat them, and we’re going to [this time].”

The Crimson finished the season 5-1 after spring break, losing only to George Mason. Harvard is coming off of back-to-back games of hitting over .400 for the first time this season. The team has been led by Madden, who has 19 kills, and sophomore outside hitter DJ White, who has 16 kills, over that stretch.

“We’ve been playing really well recently,” Madden said. “We’ve had our ups and downs in games, but overall we’ve done a great job. Practices have really been great this week and I think we are pretty well prepared.”

This is the second year in a row in which Harvard has made the EIVA tournament. Last year, the Crimson was ranked second in the conference, but fell to the third-seeded Patriots in three games. Harvard is 1-4 against George Mason over the last two years.

“I hope our experience last year will help,” Baise said. “The guys are going down [to Penn State] a lot more relaxed and a lot more confident. Now that we’ve been there—we know the arena, we know the atmosphere—it should make a big difference for us. We are much more comfortable, far more than we were last year, as we look to compete for a league title.”

If the Crimson can win on Thursday, then it will challenge the winner of Penn State and Princeton in the conference championship on Saturday for an automatic bid to the NCAA championships. Harvard is 1-1 against both teams this season.

“I would love another opportunity to play Penn State in the finals,” Madden said. “I think they’re going to beat Princeton pretty handily, but are a very beatable team, even at home. We beat them 3-0 already and I would feel very confident about that matchup as well as this one [against George Mason].”