Pride fall in straight sets to Ottawa

DUBUQUE, Iowa - Returning to Heart of America Athletic Conference play, the Clarke University men's volleyball team suffered a 3-0 sweep loss to Ottawa University on Friday night in the Kehl Center.

The Pride would make late runs to cut into fairly sizeable margins in each set but would seemingly just end up running out of time on those comebacks to fall in the three sets 25-21, 25-20, and 25-18.

Both teams would experience declines in their offensive efficiency as the match went on but CU's would be more drastic as they would go from 13 kills and a .423 hitting percentage in the first to 11 kills and a .259 hitting percentage in the second to hitting negative in the third with just five kills.

The Braves hit better than .250 in every set for a final team hitting percentage of .366 led by an extremely efficient night from the middle blocker tandem of Kadeem Morris and Akeil Williams who both hit over .640 as Morris didn't commit a single hitting error with eight kills on 11 swings for a .727 and Williams had 10 kills and one error on 14 attempts for a .643.

OU's leader in kills was Marko Zolnjan who had 15 of the team's 46 kills with a .448 hitting percentage on 29 attempts as libero Nazmi Bayoglu had 10 digs and Marton Zarka had 37 assists and seven digs from his setter position.

Eduardo Hernandez had the most kills for the Pride as he finished with eight on 17 attempts and only two errors for a team-high .353 as Anthony Ramirez added seven kills and seven digs then both Justin Hernandez and Tanner May had six kills on the night.

Clarke men's volleyball will finish up their four-match week and this stretch of three-straight at home when they host Park University for a 2:00 p.m. CT first serve in the Kehl Center between the Pride and Pirates.