The No. 8 nationally ranked Park University men's volleyball program traveled to Dubuque, Iowa for a match with Clarke University on Saturday, coming away with the sweep, 25-17, 25-14, 25-13.

Park gets back to the win column after dropping the previous two matches and now are up to 16-5 and 8-4 on the season, while Clarke now stands at 5-17 and 2-10 in the Heart of America Athletic Conference.

Mihailo Ivanovic and Leonardo Maldonado got Park's opening four points with two kills apiece. Maldonado held serve and added a service ace, which was followed by Nicolas Tenius' kill for a 6-3 lead. The Pirates continued to press ahead and after a four-to-five scoring run, the Pirates held the 16-10 advantage, another service ace and kill by Maldonado and Ivanovic were on display. Park stretched their lead to six points and then as much as eight by the end of the set for the win, 25-17. Set one was the best hitting percentage set for both sides, Park at .714 and the Pride at .368.

Another four out of five point scoring run led to another early lead for Park in set two, 10-5. Both sides had big scoring swings, as Clarke battled back to a 11-10 deficit, which was immediately answered by a Pirate 4-0 run to force a Pride timeout, 15-10. The run was not over though as Tenius and Joao Infante each registered kills for a 20-10 lead. By the end of the set the Pirates cruised to a 25-14 win.

Six service aces in set three for Park were huge to get more separation from the Pride. Nicolas Tenius had three for the set and led the Pirates with five for the match. Before the third set could get off the ground, the Pirates were already leading 7-1. Park was able to score at will with three big runs of five points and two runs of four to reach a 25-13 third set win.

Maldonado led Park with 11 kills, followed by Tenius and Ivanovic with nine and eight, respectively.

Park had 12 service aces for the match and another 12 service errors for the Pride really helped the Pirate cause.

Park cleaned up a lot offensively and had their highest hitting percentage of the season at .582 with only six hitting errors, 38 kills, and 55 total attacks.

Eduardo Sabi was only two digs away from a double-double with 30 assists and eight digs for the match. Behind Sabi defensively were Veljko Stojic and Tenius with seven and six digs.

The Pirates will be on the road in St. Louis, Mo. against University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy on Tuesday at 7pm. WATCH
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