Justin Hernandez caps stellar senior season with All-Heart honors

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - As the 2025 Clarke University men's volleyball regular season came to a close earlier this week, the Heart of America Athletic Conference announced the All-Conference and individual season awards on Friday afternoon with the Pride's Justin Hernandez being named All-Heart Honorable Mention.

Hernandez, a 6-4 right side hitter from Clinton, Utah, had a career year in his senior season, posting career-highs in kills (313), kills per set (3.40), hitting percentage (.232), digs (122), and service aces (22) to lead the Pride in kills and kills per set while finishing second on the team in hitting percentage and aces as he also finished with the team's best total block number at 62 on the season with 50 block assists and 12 solo blocks, just coming up shy of his career-best block number of 65 as a junior.

The left-handed swinger had double digit kills in 18 of the team's 28 matches, including three matches with 20 or more kills as he set a new career-high with his first 20-kill performance at home against Judson on Feb. 20, would tie that mark on Mar. 15 in a win against St. Ambrose a day after beating that mark in a road win at Graceland on Mar. 14 where he had 26 kills on 46 swings for a .457 hitting percentage in that match.

Those 26 kills over five sets against Graceland tied the eighth-best mark for kills in a five set match in Clarke men's volleyball history as his season total of 313 was the sixth-best kill number in the conference for 2025 and his 3.40 kills per set finished as the 11th-best mark amongst qualified Heart attackers.

In his career, Hernandez finishes with 701 kills, a .211 hitting percentage, 2.41 kills per set, 267 digs, 189 total blocks, and 32 service aces over his four-year Clarke career, producing the first 300-kill season since the 2018 season as a senior.

Full Heart Release: https://heart.prestosports.com/sports/mvball/2024-25/releases/20250411piu58t

Pride men's volleyball finished the 2025 regular season with a 5-23 overall record and a 3-16 finish in the Heart to place sixth in the Heart North Division with the Heart Tournament set to begin on Saturday with the quarterfinal round matches.