Pride suffer setback at No. 3 Park

PARKVILLE, Mo. - Wrapping up a full week of conference road matches, the Clarke University men's volleyball team dropped their third-straight match in a 3-0 final against NAIA No. 3 Park University on Saturday afternoon.

The Pirates showed their strength over the length of the match with a dominant .426 hitting percentage while CU wasn't able to finish the match at a positive hitting percentage, having 25 errors to just 23 kills for a -.026 hitting percentage to set scores of 25-12, 25-17, and 25-19.

A large reason for that negative hitting percentage was due to that 25-12 first set where the Pride hit for a -.217 hitting percentage with 11 errors and just six kills while Park only committed a single hitting errors with eight kills in the set.

Though Clarke showed offensive improvement over the next two sets, PU never took a step back on their offensive game answering the .467 first set with a .400 second, and a .435 third led by an 11-kill match from Alessandro Tolin, who also hit .529 while Veljko Stojic had 10 kills and a .455 hitting percentage.

For the Pride, Dustin Kuner had the best offensive match with a team-high six kills and a .133 hitting percentage while Micah Dancy had five kills then Nolan Amdur and Tanner May each had four kills, but none of those three had a hitting percentage above .000.

Clarke men's volleyball will stay on the road for one more match next week when they travel to Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Tuesday, Feb. 24 for a Heart matchup against Mount Mercy University for a 7:00 p.m. CT scheduled opening serve.