Park University's No. 4 seeded Men's Volleyball program was paired with No. 5 Ottawa University (Ariz.) in NAIA Men's Volleyball National Championship Pool Play for the second straight season. Reminiscent of 2022, the Pirates double-downed on the OUAZ Spirit in another 3-2 victory to advance to the semifinal round.
Park is now three-for-four in semifinal appearances since the NAIA moved men's volleyball to a championship sport in 2019. This also marks the third straight appearance for the Pirates in the semifinal round. Park's record in pool play matches is now 6-1.
OUAZ was an at-large bid to the final site and are 14-9 to close out 2023. Last year, OUAZ was the No. 2 seed in the national tournament and Park was the lower seeded at-large team. It is a new season though and Park was the favored No. 4 seed as the 2023 Heart of America Athletic Conference Champion. Park only has one blemish on the season at 27-1 and are now 3-1 on the season in five-set matches.
Park is now 3-0 against the Spirit, all three matches coming in the last two seasons.
Joao Friedrich is one of the more playoffs tried and true players on Park's squad, having been in the last two semifinal appearances. In his NAIA playoff career, he has never had less than 10 kills in a match with 128 kills in eight matches. Speaking of impeccable careers, Friedrich also has 923 total career kills in three seasons at Park.
Tonight was no different with 23 kills against the Spirit and he ended the match on a service ace, fitting for the NAIA's leader in service aces per set.
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Following the match, he was interviewed to go over his post-match thoughts by NAIA Communications Manager, Katie Green.
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The Pirates had 14 kills and three attack errors on 20 total attacks for their highest hitting percentage of the match of .550 in set one.
The Pirates went ahead by six towards the middle of the set with six of the last eight points going to the Pirates for the, 25-16 win.
Samuel Essilfie led Park with five kills in set one and he finished with a double-double on 18 kills and 10 digs.
It was tied 9-9 in set two, but a 5-1 run by OUAZ put them up 14-10 on Park. The Pirates were unable to close the gap by the end of it, as the Spirit evened the match, 25-21.
Set three was the biggest battle of them all with five lead changes and 18 ties. OUAZ had their second consecutive set of 15 kills and finished with three sets with 15 kills in the match. Park had their highest number of kills in the match in set three with 16.
The largest lead in set three was only by three to keep in perspective how close these teams were. Park faced set point with OUAZ leading 27-26, but were able to come away with four of the next five points for the 30-28 set win.
Nicolas Tenius had the honors with the set finishing service ace and was not the last time in the match a service ace would close a set.
The Spirit, like last year's pool play match, were able to answer immediately back after each Park set win.
In set four, OUAZ led by as much as six points and forced a set five with a 25-21 score.
In a sprint to 15 points, a three-point lead was the largest separation between these clubs. Park's top three scorers, Friedrich, Essilfie, and
Daniel Isernhagen combined for seven kills in the final set.
Isernhagen had an exceptional day with nine kills and six total blocks. Park finished with 12 total blocks, while the Spirit had 13.
Both teams went back-and-forth in the final frame and with the match held in the balance at 12-12, OUAZ had a costly service error and attack error to bring on a timeout. Following the timeout and the Spirit facing match point, Friedrich dialed up an ace to win the match 15-12.
Park had seven service aces to OUAZ's four. 23 service errors went against the Spirit, while Park only committed 13 of the same.
The defensive effort for Park was solid, as
Joao Infante led Park with 11 digs. Essilfie joined Infante in double-figure dig numbers with 10 digs of his own, while Friedrich and
Leonardo Leao had high marks as well with nine each.
Eduardo Faquin was a great asset for the Pirates and provided 47 assists for his team.
The Pirates will face No. 1 Benedictine University – Mesa on Friday at 7:30pm in the MidAmerican Energy Company RecPlex in West Des Moines, Iowa.
The Redhawks have played in each of the four semifinals since 2019 and have played in the last three national championships, including winning it all in 2019. Last year these two teams faced each other in the 2022 NAIA semifinals and Benedictine Mesa earned the sweep.
No. 4 Park vs No. 1 Benedictine Mesa | 4/14
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