Pride hang tough but can't close out sets in loss to No. 15 William Penn

OSKALOOSA, Iowa - Closing out a stretch of nine-straight matches away from their home floor, the Clarke University men's volleyball team fell in a 3-0 match to No. 15 William Penn University on Tuesday night.

The Pride got off to a strong first set start and led for the bulk of the opening set up to 23-22 before WPU took the final three points to take the first set 25-23 with the final two points coming from Josh Bluhm kills.

CU would jump out to a lead early again in the second set but not hold it nearly as long when the Statesmen went on a run to go from down 10-8 to up 16-10 after an 8-0 run on the serve of Brady Zell where Clarke would comeback to cut William Penn's lead down to two at 24-22 before WPU got that final point to go up 2-0 in the match.

It would be more of the same in the third set but without Clarke ever taking a lead as William Penn would finish the match hitting an even .300 as a team led by Britten Beallis hitting .783 without a single error and 18 kills on 23 total attacks where Ben Cemeno-Castillo was the only player on the Statesmen to have double digit kills with 12 on the night.

The Pride were led by the tandem of Justin Hernandez and Tanner May as they combined for 21 kills with Hernandez finishing with one more kill than May at 11 to 10 respectively with Hernandez finishing with 12 digs for a double-double and May producing three blocks from the middle.

Clarke men's volleyball will return home this weekend, first with a Friday night match on Mar. 21 against Kansas Wesleyan University with a 7:00 p.m. CT scheduled opening serve in the Kehl Center.