Pride drop pair of matches to Ottawa and Kansas Wesleyan

OTTAWA, Kan. - A trip to Kansas for a Saturday tri-match, the Clarke University men's volleyball team dropped both their matches against Ottawa University 3-0 and Kansas Wesleyan University 3-2 in their final road non-conference matches of the season.

Ottawa earned their sweep win by set scores of 25-19, 25-16, 25-15 as the Pride earned wins in the first two sets against KWU but the Coyotes rallied back to take the final three sets as the final scores finished at 20-25, 22-25, 25-17, 33-31, and 15-12.

In the five-set match against Kansas Wesleyan, sophomore right side attacker Justin Hernandez finished with a match-high and career-high 19 kills while hitting for an efficient .333 hitting percentage as he also added eight digs. Tye Ojala had 12 kills as the only other member of the Pride to have double digit kills while both Timothy Meyer and Stephen Lewandowski had nine kills each while Meyer had a team-high 15 digs.

With starting setter Erik Schmidt unable to make the trip due to injury, sophomore Kainoa Gerard set a career-high with 42 assists while adding seven digs and being in on six block assists. Freshman Austin Silva also got the call as the libero to also finish with double digit digs for CU at 10 for a career-high of his own.

The lengthy 33-31 fourth set win for the Coyotes saw neither side has greater than a one-point lead from the 18-18 mark on until Kansas Wesleyan pulled ou the final three points of the set after trailing 31-30.

In Clarke's morning match against host Ottawa, no player for CU had more than six kills as Hernandez and Zachary Barr led the team in that department while Gerard had 23 assists and Silva led the team with six digs.

Clarke will return to Heart play with a road match against Mount Mercy University on Monday, Mar. 6 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa for a 7:00 p.m. CT scheduled first serve against the Mustangs.