Park University's No. 4 seeded Men's Volleyball program was defeated by No.1 Benedictine University Mesa in straight sets in the 2023 NAIA Men's Volleyball Semifinals for the second straight year.

This was the third consecutive trip to the semifinal round for Park and the fourth for the Redhawks. The Redhawks survive Park and advance to their fourth consecutive NAIA Tournament Championship match.

Park was 8-1 in semifinal appearances before 2019 and since then are 0-3 in NAIA National Championship Semifinals after tonight.

Park's record at the final NAIA National Championship Tournament is now 7-4 since 2019.

The Pirates end their season with only two losses at 27-2 and set a new program record with a 22-match winning streak earlier this year. The Redhawks are the 2023 Cal Pac Champions and are 27-3 on the season.

They will face No. 2 Vanguard University (Calif.), a team they have a 2-1 record against this year. The championship match will be Saturday, April 15 in the MidAmerican Energy Company RecPlex.

The Pirates are 2-3 against Benedictine Mesa all-time and have lost the last two in back-to-back semifinals.

The only time Park was able to lead was for the first point in the third set. Outside of that, the Redhawks had firm control during the match.

The Redhawks hit .329, while holding Park to their season low of .071. Benedictine Mesa had at least 12 kills and at least three blocks in each set.

Park had their season low in total blocks with two, the first coming from Joao Infante and the second off the double-block from Mihailo Ivanovic and Samuel Essilfie. On the other side of the net, Benedictine Mesa had their second match in a row with 10 blocks.

The Redhawks led by as much as 11 points in set one and had their largest set win of the match at 25-15. Five blocks made it difficult for Park to get anything going in set one.

Another big lead was established by Benedictine Mesa in set two as a seven-point swing put them ahead 12-3. Nine attack errors for the set made it difficult for the Pirates to overcome the Redhawks as the second set was won 25-17.

Park had 11 kills in the third set and were starting to play more themselves, as Joao Friedrich had six kills in the third set. He led Park with 11 kills for the match and was the only player for the Pirates in double-figure offensive numbers.  

There were eight ties in set three, but the Redhawks had the answer each time to retain the lead. Park battled until the very end with the set tied 23-23. From that point, a Benedictine Mesa kill and a Park attack error closed out the match with a 25-23 set score for the Redhawks.

The Pirates and the Redhawks were essentially neutral on the serve advantage, Benedictine had two more service aces and two more service errors than Park. The Pirates had three service aces and 10 service errors for the match, while the Redhawks were five and 12 of the same.

Isernhagen and Essilfie were tied for second on the team with six kills in the match.

Defensively, Friedrich and Leonardo Leao earned six digs.

Eduardo Faquin supplied 25 assists for his team tonight to close out his freshman season with 836 assists in 2023.

Park's lineup had five members making their first-ever appearance in an NAIA semifinal match.

Box Score