The No. 6 nationally ranked Park University men's volleyball program was in Breckon Sports Center on Thursday through Saturday for the 2025 Pirate Invitational. Park opens the year with a 3-1 start to the year and rebounded after a loss to University of Jamestown with a win over No. 8 Westcliff University.

1/30 - St. Thomas University, W 3-1 | BOX SCORE

The Pirates began the season with a first-year program, St. Thomas University (Fla.). A tough matchup for a program having its first match as a program with No. 6 Park, but it was an entertaining match for both sides. The Pirates were in control during the match and hit a high percentage of .571 in the opening set. After two wins, 25-22 and 25-20, over the Bobcats, St. Thomas showed why the moment wasn't too big for them and took their first set as a program, 25-15 over Park.

Park finished it in the fourth set with a 25-23 win on the spectacular performance from Adrian Figueroa, who in his first match with Park had 22 kills and six digs. As a team, Park hit .290 compared to St. Thomas' .295. Park had five blocks to the Bobcats' seven, but five more service aces rained down by the Pirates. Nicolas Tenius had nine kills and four service aces, while Figueroa and Alessandro Gozzi were next in line with multiple service aces.

1/31 - University of Jamestown, L 1-3 | BOX SCORE

The big shock of the tournament was between Park and University of Jamestown, as the Jimmies struck first in the opening set 25-21. It was close between these two clubs for the majority of the set, but a 4-0 run at the worst of times helped the Jimmies to a set point at 24-19.

The Pirates responded with their highest hitting set of the match at .318 on 11 kills, four errors, and 22 attempts. The Jimmies continued to improve set over set though hitting .379 and .550 in the final two games. Another 4-0 run in the second set helped Park get in a groove with a 11-7 lead and despite a 6-2 run by Jamestown later in the set, the Pirates stayed on top for the 25-21 victory.

At this point though, Jamestown was playing with a ton of confidence on the road and had the answers to figure Park out with 25-20 and 25-15 wins for the upset victory. This is the first win for Jamestown over Park in four meetings between these programs.

Tenius was called upon for 15 kills on 36 attempts and he had a second match in a row with four service aces. No other Pirate was in double-digit kills, but Mihailo Ivanovic was the next highest at eight kills and a hitting percentage of .538. The Jimmies had five more blocks than Park and hit .307 to Park's .157.

2/1 - Goshen College, W 3-0 | BOX SCORE

Park came back the next day motivated against Goshen College, defeating the Maple Leafs 25-13, 25-13, 25-12 in the lone sweep of the weekend for the Pirates.

Park made quick work in the match and executed to a "T" with hitting percentages of .500, .333, and .619 in the match. A 5-0 run in the first set broke open a 14-5 lead over the Maple Leafs. A larger 8-0 run took the game from 16-12 to set point in a hurry, and again Park was up 13-3 in the third set in a flash. Neither side had an impressive number blocking, five total blocks for Park and only three for Goshen. Some unforced errors by Goshen led to a .000 hitting percentage on 16 errors and 16 kills, while the Pirates found their rhythm with 33 kills and only seven errors for a .500 hitting percentage.

Nine Pirates registered kills in the match, Leonardo Maldonado led the Pirates with 10. Maldonado also kept the service ace game going strong with four service aces. It was a relatively even split between Umberto Caleca and Jovan Nikolic at the setter position, 14 assists for Caleca and 12 for Nikolic.

 2/1 - No. 8 Westcliff, W 3-1 | BOX SCORE

The NAIA Top 10 matchup did not disappoint and Park made showed up big when needed to hold on for a 3-1 victory over No. 8 Westcliff. The Warriors were 3-0 in the Pirate Invitational matches, but the Pirates gave the Warriors their first loss of the season. A 6-0 run in the first set began to separate Park from Westcliff with a 13-8 lead. It was a landslide from there as Park captured the opening set, 25-18 on a .391 hitting percentage.

The second set was a turn of events and Westcliff jumped to a 6-1 lead. The Pirates came within two points towards the middle of the set, but Westcliff had a 4-0 run to solidify their lead for the 25-17 set two win. Both teams had an impressive 19 kills in the third set. There were three huge runs to keep everyone in suspense, first Park had a 4-0 run, then the Warriors scored five unanswered, followed by a 5-spot by the Pirates to tie the set at 16-16. The Pirates had a set point at 24-22, but the Warriors battled back to over take Park 25-24. The lead swapped hands four more times before a 3-0 run by Park finally ended it 31-29. A service error and two attack errors paved the way for the win.

As one could imagine, whoever was going to win that monster of a third set was going to move on to win the match, and that's exactly what happened with a 25-21 win for the Pirates in the fourth set. Park was led by three Pirates in double-digit kills, 17 for Maldonado, 14 for Ivanovic, and 10 for Veljko Stojic. Both Maldonado and Stojic were close to double-doubles with seven digs.

Park had 12 blocks for the match with 10 solo blocks, while Westcliff was at 11. Nikolic got the start at setter for the Pirates, securing his career high of 44 assists. Ivanovic once again had a great attack percentage at .579 and he was on for the Pirate Post-Game afterwards.

Park rests up for NCAA Division II matchup with Missouri S&T in Rolla, Mo. at 6pm Thursday, February 6. WATCH