The No. 8 nationally ranked Park University women's volleyball program cruised to victory in Breckon Sports Center on Friday night against Heart of America Athletic Conference opponent Graceland University, 25-18, 25-17, 25-13.

The Pirates are now at 10 wins on the season at 10-2 and 4-0 in the Heart. The Yellowjackets drop to 4-9 and 1-4 in conference play on the flip side.

The match started back and forth with it being tied at 7-7. Graceland burned one timeout at this point in the match and then their last one after a six-point run by Park. With a 13-7 lead, the Pirates asserted themselves the rest of the way with as much as a nine-point lead at 20-11. Three kills and four service aces by Grecia Ung led the Pirates to a 25-18 win in set one.

Ung was clicking this evening with a match-leading 11 kills, her seventh match of the season with double-figure kill numbers.

In set two, Park shifted gears with a kill by Ung, a service ace from Aly Anderson, and a block from Debora Bernardi and Arianna Marino in three consecutive points to give Park a 10-6 lead over the Yellowjackets. Park kept the Yellowjackets a safe distance away and turned the corner again with a six-point scoring spree. Set two was Park's highest hitting percentage of .250. Before you knew it, Park grabbed another nine-point lead at 21-12 and easily sailed into a 25-17 victory.

How the second set ended is how the third set started, as the Pirates wasted no time getting to an 8-2 lead. Three different Pirates had kills and two back to back solo blocks were sent back by Bernardi and Izabella Ceratti. By the end of the set, the Pirates scaled to their largest lead of the evening of 13 points at 24-11. Ceratti was tough to handle for the Yellowjackets with three service aces in the third set alone. Park had no problems securing the last point of the match for the victory 25-13.

Marino now has eight double-doubles on the year at setter, including five of her last six matches. Tonight she had 24 assists and led Park with 14 digs.
Irene Verdino joined her teammate double-figures in digs with 11.

The advantage off the serve belonged to Park with nine service aces and 12 service errors by Graceland.

The Pirates defense held the Yellowjackets below zero in attack percentage

The Pirates will quickly turn around and do it again tomorrow against Peru State College at 2pm in Breckon Sports Center. WATCH HERE