Pride fight to pair of five-set losses in Saturday tri-match

DUBUQUE, Iowa - Closing out a home weekend with a pair of matches, one in conference play and the other in non-conference, the Clarke University men's volleyball team finished Saturday with a pair of 3-2 losses to No. 14 Morningside University and St. Ambrose University in the Kehl Center.

In the day's opening match between the Pride and Morningside, it was the home team that earned the first set win of the match with a 25-17 opening set behind 15 kills and just three errors combined with the Mustangs committing nine errors for a .030 hitting percentage.

Clarke had a similar offensive stat line over the next four sets, including an identical .387 hitting percentage in the second with exactly 15 kills and three errors again on 31 attempts while hitting .222 in the third and .355 in the fourth with the set scores finishing 25-23 in the second and third for MU then the Pride extended the match to a fifth set with a 25-22 win in the fourth.

In that fifth set, Morningside jumped out to a 4-1 lead but CU answered to take their own leads at 7-6 and 8-7 to force the side change but then the Mustangs went on a 5-0 run to lead 12-8 then finish the match on a 3-0 run for the 15-10 set win, also winning the match.

The offensive options were plenty for setter Benjamin Reiser, who finished with a career-high 55 assists in the match and also surpass 1,000 career assists to become the 10th member of the Clarke men's volleyball program to reach that assists total with the kills being spread out to five different members of the team to produce at least nine kills.

Leading the Pride in kills against Morningside was freshman middle Dustin Kuner as he had 14 kills on his 28 attempts with four errors for a .357 hitting percentage, also being in on nine block assists for an 18.5-point performance, before unfortunately being unable to play in more than a set in the day's finale.

Micah Dancy finished with 13 kills himself while Tanner May and Eduardo Hernandez added 11 kills apiece with Hernandez finishing a dig shy of a double-double and Trey Vescoso also came up one kill shy of a double-double with nine kills and 10 digs while also finishing with two service aces.

The Mustangs leaned heavily on a pair of attackers who finished with a match-high 21 kills from Natan Alves and Mauro Verstraeten with setter Malu Wilcox finishing at 49 assists and libero Tucker Juhnke producing 24 digs to lead the match in the back row defensive stat.

Onto the night cap between CU and St. Ambrose, the Pride would not only be down Kuner after about 40 points of the first set, Dancy would also be ruled out due to illness prior to the start of the match, losing their top two point producers from the first match for the non-conference matchup.

The offensive losses looked to hinder Clarke early with their hitting percentages in the first two sets finished at .061 and .132 for the Fighting Bees to win those sets 25-23 and 25-20, but the Pride picked it up in the third and fourth for 25-19 and 25-23 wins of their own, forcing yet another fifth set behind set hitting percentage of .304 and .323 respectively as a 15-10 fifth set for SAU saw CU hit for a -.062 with four errors and only three kills on 16 swings.

Hernandez continued to play solid offensively with a season-high 14 kills to finish the day with two-straight double digit kill matches for the first time in his career while May had 13 kills and a .407 hitting percentage with the next most kills on the team coming from Vescoso, even though he really only spent two sets on the front row, mainly sent to serving duties to also finish with three aces in the match.

Reiser had 41 more assists in the final match of the day while libero Jason Romero had 11 digs against St. Ambrose after his 13 digs against Morningside and the remaining attackers had five kills come from Noah Whalen, four kills from Lachlan Donnelly, and three kills from Kyle Scott, playing in Kuner's vacated middle blocker spot.

Clarke men's volleyball will play another game in non-conference play when they travel to Rock Island, Ill. to face Augustana College on Tuesday, Mar. 3 for a 7:00 p.m. CT scheduled first serve.