Pride close out home slate with Senior Day split against UHSP and St. Ambrose

DUBUQUE, Iowa - Ending a very busy week in the Kehl Center with their final home matches of the 2023 season, the Clarke University men's volleyball team was able to split their tri-match, suffering a 3-0 loss to University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy while earing a 3-2 win over St. Ambrose University to end the day.

Prior to that final match against SAU, the Pride honored three seniors part of Senior Day as libero Nick Palatine, setter Erik Schmidt, and middle Stephen Lewandowski all received their senior recognition and gifts for the final home match of the season. Both Schmidt and Palatine had to sit out of the weekend's action due to injury as both Lewandowski and Schmidt plan to return to CU next season and exercise their extra year of eligibility granted during the 2020 COVID-19 shortened season.

In their 3-2 win over the Fighting Bees, Clarke and St. Ambrose traded set wins starting with back-to-back 26-24 wins, starting with one for SAU in the first before they earned a third set victory 25-18 as the Pride rattled off a 25-21 win in the fourth and pulled away 15-9 in the fifth to get CU to their seventh in of the season, tying their win total from the 2022 season with three matches remaining on the schedule.

A close fifth set through the first 19 points at a 10-9 Clarke lead, the Pride finished on a 5-0 run behind the attack of Eduardo Hernandez, who had kills on three of the final five points and four of Clarke's final six points. He finished with seven kills, tying the team-high with his non-related namesake Justin Hernandez and Lewandowski while Tye Ojala had six kills and Zachary Barr added another five.

Libero Austin Silva finished with a career-high 15 digs, which tied the match high as Justin Hernandez also added 14 digs for a career-high of his own while sophomore setter Kainoa Gerard had 39 assists, just four off of his career-high that he set a week ago.

In their sweep defeat to the Eutectics earlier in the day, the Pride were led on the attack by Barr's nine kills as Silva had another double digit dig performance at 13 while Ojala had six kills and both Nathan Little and Michael Pettke added five apiece.

Clarke men's volleyball will be on the road for their final three matches of the season, starting with a trip to Missouri Valley College next Friday for a 7:00 p.m. CT match start in Marshall, Mo.