The No. 8 nationally ranked Park University women's volleyball program continues to build upon their Heart of America Athletic Conference wins this year with their most recent 3-1 victory over MidAmerica Nazarene University on Tuesday in Olathe, Kan., 25-17, 21-25, 25-19, 25-15.

The Pirates are at the top of the Heart at 11-0 and have an impressive 13 match win streak at 17-2. The Pioneers, who were the co-regular season Heart Champions with Park last year and the 2022 conference tournament champions, have had a more turbulent road thus far at 10-9 and 6-4 in the Heart.

The Pioneers were the only team in the Heart to give Park fits in the last three seasons of Heart play with Park's only two conference losses coming in Olathe, Kan. at the Cook Center.

The Pirates started off with an errorless first set with 14 kills and hit .438, while holding the Pioneers to a .073 hitting percentage. It was close at 12-10 before the Pirates picked up steam five of the next seven points for a 17-12 lead. The momentum continued to mount at the tail end of the set seven of the last eight points siding with the Pirates, 25-17.

Set two was a better performance by the Pioneers and at 8-3, MidAmerica Nazarene forced Park to use all two of their timeouts. Park was able to tie it twice at 16 and 17, but the Pioneers never relinquished the lead for a 25-21 win.

The remaining two sets were back in Park's favor with 10 and 13 kills, while holding MidAmerica Nazarene to under 10 kills each set. After an 8-7 start to set three, things picked up in a hurry for the Pirates. Three straight points off of a Grecia Ung kill, a Debora Bernardi and Arianna Marino block, and a Malaina Hensley service ace forced a Pioneer timeout at 11-7. Despite the timeout, MidAmerica Nazarene surrendered five of the next six points before taking a timeout, all five points were attack errors. This cleared the runway for Park's 25-19 set three win.

The Pirates took it to another gear in the final set and led by as much as 10 points, which they arrived at to end the match at 25-15. Eight service aces were delivered by the Pirates for the match with three aces in set four from three different Pirates, Irene Verdino, Marino, and Ung.

Both Ung and Hensley were fabulous with double-doubles in kills and assists. Ung had 11 kills and 12 digs, while Hensley put up 10 of each.

Three other Pirates had eight kills, including Bernardi, Izabella Ceratti, and Barbara Almeida.

Four Pirates had double-digit dig numbers, but none more than Verdino at 24.

Marino put another great match together and tallied 39 assists for the match.

The Pirates travel to Canton, Mo. to take on the Wildcats of Culver-Stockton College on Thursday, October 12 at 6pm. WATCH HERE
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