Pride fall to No. 2 Park in weekend wrap up

PARKVILLE, Mo. - Coming off of a lengthy five-set victory the night prior, the Clarke University men's volleyball team looked to pull of an upset on Saturday but fell short of that goal in a 3-0 loss to No. 2 Park University on Saturday afternoon.

Following a rough opening set that saw the Pirates earn a 25-13 set victory, CU would improve their numbers in the next and final two sets but couldn't break through on the scoreboard to 25-21, and 25-18 sets in favor of PU.

Park had an efficient day on the attack with a .342 hitting percentage as a team as no set was under .300 for the Pirates being led on the attack by Joao Friedrich who had nine kills and a .316 hitting percentage while Joao Infante (7/.500), Mihailo Ivanoic (6/.857), Alessandro Tolin (6/.714)and Leonardo Maldonado (6/.071) were right behind Friedrich for offensive production.

For Clarke, Justin Hernandez had the best offensive day, scoring a team-high 8.5 points with seven kills on 17 swing for a .353 hitting percentage as Anthony Ramirez finished with five kills also on the right side on the opposite rotation of Hernandez.

Eight was the thematic number for the CU setters, PJ Vaughan and Benjamin Reiser, and libero Kendall Killins as the setters both finished with eight assist while Reiser added two digs where Killins led the team with eight digs in the match.

Clarke men's volleyball will continue on the road in the early part of next week when they travel to Oskaloosa, Iowa to face William Penn University on Tuesday, Feb. 27 for a 7:00 p.m. CT first serve against the Statesmen.