The momentum shift of the third frame felt especially sudden after a rough second game for the Crimson. It wasn’t just that George Mason took the first three points and led wire-to-wire—it was that the Patriots mounted a mid-frame 11-1 run and opened up a double-digit deficit en route to a deceptively close 25-22 advantage.

“We always thought that we could win,” Clemens said. “We built momentum at the end of that second set that carried into the third.”

For Harvard, which entered as the second seed in the four-team EIVA playoff, the loss to George Mason came after a pair of 3-1 wins during the regular season. However, the Crimson was missing co-captain Caleb Zimmick, who had been sidelined since the last match with sickness.  

History meant little at the start of the contest and less at the end, when the Patriots erased three different fourth-frame gaps. There was a 4-3 Crimson lead, a 13-11 lead, and a 20-18 lead.

Finally, at the end of the match, there was no lead to erase at all.

“There’s a little bit of disappointment knowing that we weren’t able to pull that out,” Baise said. “But pretty soon [Harvard players] are going to get proud of all the work they’ve done.”

—Staff writer Sam Danello can be reached at sam.danello@thecrimson.com.