Pride fall 3-0 at Viterbo in 2025 season opener

LA CROSSE, Wis. - Starting a fairly busy opening week with a Wednesday road trip to La Crosse, Wis., the Clarke University men's volleyball team suffered a 3-0 loss to Viterbo University in their 2025 season opener.

The Pride kept sets one and three tight falling by scores of 25-22 and 28-26 respetively while also dropping the second set 25-12 for the V-Hawks to pull off the sweep in what was their second match of the season.

As a team, Viterbo finished at an attack percentage of .200 or higher with the second set finishing at .320 where CU struggled offensively with five kills and seven errors on 25 total attempts in the second to finish at -.080, which led to the 13-point margin in that set.

Neither team had a player in double figures for kills as Justin Hernandez for Clarke and Styrk Myhre for the V-Hawks tied for the match-high of nine kills with Myhre only comitting one error in 11 swings to hit .727.

Four other member of the VU lineup had five or more kills and there were three such members of the Pride lineup to do so as both Anthony Ramirez and Eduardo Hernandez had six kills while Tanner May finished with five kills and one error on 11 attempts in his Clarke debut.

Getting the call to start the season opener at setter, Benjamin Reiser finished the match with 25 assists, a new career-high for the sophomore from Munich, Germany, as Eduardo Hernandez led the team in digs with nine while Trey Vescoso and AJ Matsumoto adding seven and five digs respectively in their first time in the CU navy and gold.

Pride men's volleyball will be back on the road this weekend when they travel to Mishawaka, Ind. for a three-match weekend starting with a neutral court matchup against Calumet College of St. Joseph on Friday, Jan. 31 for a 4:00 p.m. CT scheduled opening serve in the Adidas Game One Pilot Invitational.