Pride fight to extend the match but fall in four at Ottawa
OTTAWA, Kan. - Starting their first full conference weekend road trip of their 2026 season, the Clarke University men's volleyball team dropped a four set match 3-1 to Ottawa University on Friday night.
No set finished closer than four points as the home team earned the first two set wins at 25-19 and 25-21 before the Pride extended the match to a fourth set with a 25-21 win of their own in the third before the Braves finished off the match with yet another 25-21 victory.
The match as a whole saw both teams produce strong offensive performances as the Pride produced their second-best errors per set mark of the season while producing a .268 team hitting percentage with 50 kills on 127 total attemps with just 16 errors, but Ottawa had 55 kills on 120 swings for a .283 hitting percentage despite having more errors at 21.
Each of the three set wins for OU came behind late runs in each as a 4-0 run in the first finished that set, a 5-1 run closed out the second set, then the fourth set was finished behind another 4-0 run after the set was tied 21-21.
A pair of Pride freshmen led the attack with double digit kills as Micah Dancy tied for the match-high with 12 kills on 25 swings for a .400 hitting percentage while Nolan Amdur had 10 kills for both freshmen to record their early career-highs in the kills category.
The trio of Trey Vescoso, Dustin Kuner, and Tanner May all had eight kills apiece with May finishing the match with eight total blocks, two solos and six block assists, for a 13-point night, tying Dancy for the team lead, as Kuner had four block assists, and Vescoso had seven digs and three total blocks.
Setting up all of that offense for Clarke was another 40-assist performance from setter Benjamin Reiser as the junior produced his season-high for assists in a match with 45 in the four sets while adding a season-high tying eight digs.
Three Braves players had double digit kills with a pair tying Dancy's mark of 12 in Macort Pickup and Marko Zolnjan with Horia Flipisan adding 10 kills as the service error stat played a major factor in the point differential with Ottawa only making 10 total errors on the serve, while CU finished at 23 service errors.
Clarke men's volleyball will finish their road trip on Saturday, Feb. 21 when they face off against Park University in Parkville, Mo. for a 12:00 p.m. CT scheduled first serve between the Pride and Pirates.