The No. 2 nationally ranked Park University men's volleyball program was unscathed against University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy on Tuesday evening, defeating UHSP in straight sets, 25-17, 25-15, 25-19.

Park bumps up to 12-1 on the season and are 4-0 in their Heart of America Athletic Conference matches. The Eutectics are having one of their best starts in recent memory at 10-2 and 2-1 in conference play. UHSP garnered much attention after a sweep of their St. Louis, Mo. counterpart No. 8 Missouri Baptist University the night before.

The Pirates hit .247 for the match and had 15 kills in the final frame, while UHSP was unable to get above nine kills in a set and managed a .130 hitting percentage.

The serving game had a huge impact in the game with 12 service aces thundering down for Park, while 15 service errors were registered by the Eutectics. Park had 12 service errors themselves and only allowed one service ace by their opponent.

An 8-6 lead by Park in set one grew to five after a kill by Joao Infante and a service ace by Joao Friedrich, 13-8. Still, UHSP showed resilience and came back to challenge Park 15-14. With their one-point lead, the Pirates turned it up with a 4-0 run, highlighted by two service aces by Leonardo Maldonado. Up five points, the Pirates were able to gain an avalanche of points at the end, scoring four of the last five, for the 25-17 win.

Park got off to a bigger lead in set two, 10-3, and there was little the Eutectics could do to prevent a 25-15 set two win by the Pirates. Park had a 7-0 run to gain their 10-3 advantage, which showcased an unheard of six service aces in a row by Friedrich. He finished the match with eight service aces and is well on his way in climbing Park men's volleyball history in career service aces, now just 24 service aces away from surpassing the all-time leader at Park, Skye Gosewisch at 161 (2000-2003). Gosewisch and the rest of the 2003 men's volleyball team were recognized this Fall as 2023 Wall of Honor recipients for winning Park's first team national championship in school history.

UHSP held the lead early on at 7-6 in set three, but Park would over take them with a 3-0 run off two kills by Friedrich and a double block by Friedrich and Mihailo Ivanovic. The Eutectics would not go down without a fight and the match would be tied two more times before the Pirates sailed off in to the horizon on two more 3-0 runs for a 25-19 sweep.

Eduardo Sabi had 23 assists and five digs, and as this week's Heart Setter of the Week from last week's performance of 9.27 assists per set, he was last night's Pirate Post-Game interview.
 
Friedrich had 13 kills and nearly had a double-double in assists with eight.

Offensively, Infante, Ivanovic, and Gabriel Soares were the next in line with six, four, and four kills, respectively.

Joao Bonanoni was also doing his thing defensively with nine digs.

Park prepares for their next match against Graceland University on Saturday, March 2 in Lamoni, Iowa. WATCH
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