Pride drop pair to finish opening weekend road trip

MISHAWAKA, Ind. - Playing their first two-match day of the 2025 season, the Clarke University was unable to find any footing in a pair of 3-0 losses to Lawrence Tech University and Bethel University (Ind.) on Saturday morning and afternoon at the Adidas Game-One Pilot Invitational hosted by Bethel.

The Pride were seemingly in search of answers in the same areas they struggled in the night before against Calumet College of St. Joseph as they got aced a combined 28 times in the six sets and only managed 23 kills over on the offensive side over that same span.

Against Lawrence Tech, Clarke couldn't get much going as they fell by set scores of 25-8, 25-11, and 25-9 while CU had a little more success against Bethel but not enough to pull any closer than the set scores of 25-10, 25-17, 25-15.

Justin Hernandez led the Pride against LTU with three kills while Noah Whalen had a decent showing in more playing time against Bethel as he had eight kills on 17 swings with Paulo Simon finishing at the best hitting percentage of any member of the Pride over both matches with his three kills on seven attempts with just one error against the Pilots for a .286.

Clarke men's volleyball will return home and play in their first home match of the 2025 season on Friday, Feb. 7 when they host a tri taking on College of DuPage in a scrimmage for the Pride at 3:00 p.m. CT before playing an official regular season match later that night against St. Ambrose University for a 7:00 p.m. CT scheduled first serve.