Pride sweep season series over Graceland with Saturday's 3-0 win

LAMONI, Iowa - Earning a 3-0 win over the Yellowjackets on Feb. 3, the Clarke University men's volleyball team matched that victory 22 days later on the road with anothe sweep victory over Graceland University on Saturday.

Needing a five-point comeback in the opening set to force extra points, the Pride earned a 29-27 win in the opening set that seemed to propel the team to finishing off the sweep in the next two sets with a 25-22 win in the second and a more comfortable 25-18 win in the third.

Clarke was able to earn each set victory despite having a lower hitting percentage in the first two sets and finishing the match with less total kills than GU but the Yellowjackets created more points for the Pride with errors as they had 42 errors to CU's 29.

The only player on either side with double digit kills was Graceland's Jeremiah Ta'amu, who had 11 kills on 29 swings for a .276 hitting percentage as Rylon Raczka had eight kills and a .250 hitting percentage and Will Simmers added seven kills and a .308 hitting percentage.

For the Pride, the outside trio of Justin Hernandez, Tye Ojala, and Timothy Meyer all had seven kills with the middle tandem of Zachary Barr and Stephen Lewandowski combining for nine kills on 22 attacks with Barr finishing 5-for-11 and Lewandowski finishing 4-for-11.

Erik Schmit had his second double-double of the season and his first in a three-set match as he finished with 23 assists and 10 digs while Nick Palatine had his second-straight double digit digs match and his sixth in his last seven matches with a 14-dig effort on Saturday.

Clarke will return to the Kehl Center on Tuesday, Feb. 28 for their final Tuesday home match of the season when they host Grand View University for a 7:00 p.m. CT first serve.