Pride close 2025 regular season with 3-0 loss at Mount Mercy

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - Facing the top team in the Heart of America Athletic Conference North Division in the final regular season match of 2025, the Clarke University men's volleyball team fell 3-0 on the road on Tuesday night to Mount Mercy University.

Playing a fairly close opening set until the Mustangs finished the set on a 6-0 run to win 25-18, MMU would run away with the second and third sets by 25-12 and 25-13 set scores to earn the sweep victory.

Finishing each set with at least 13 kills, Mount Mercy hit for a team percentage of .350 by the end of the match behind a .632 in the 25-12 second with 14 kills and just two errors on 19 attempts.

Clarke's leading attacker in the match was senior Justin Hernandez as he produced 10 kills to wrap up his CU career with his 18th double digit kill match of the season to close his year with 313 kills for the most kills in a season for a Clarke attacker since Michael Jenkins had 270 in 2021 and the first season over 300 kills by a member of the Pride in seven seasons since both Tim Doughney and Dan Tynski did so in 2018 as Hernandez also passed the 700-kill total in his four seasons at 701.

Benjamin Reiser and AJ Matsumoto led the team in assists and digs respectively as Reiser had a 16-assist night with three digs while Matsumoto had eight digs while adding one of the team's 21 assists.

Mount Mercy also had only one member of their attack in double figures for kills as Guglielmo Illotti had 14 kills on just 21 swings for a hitting percentage over .500 with Gustavo Kehl Bauer leading the team with 27 assists and Richard Struska producing 11 digs.

Clarke men's volleyball wraps up the 2025 season with a 5-23 overall record and a 3-16 record in the Heart of America to finish in sixth place in the Heart North with their three-person senior class of Hernandez, setter Kainoa Gerard, and middle blocker Zachary Barr expected to be the only departures heading into the 2025-26 season.