The Park University Gilbert volleyball team had nothing on the line in their final regular season contest against Benedictine Mesa at Bell Bank Park in Mesa, Ariz., except for pride and building momentum going into the Cal Pac Tournament. The Buccaneers are locked into the number four seed in the tournament and the result of tonight's contest could not change their lot. Benedictine Mesa on the other hand was playing for the championship and an automatic berth into the NAIA tournament. The Redhawks played like the hungrier team and the best team in the conference and beat the Buccaneers 3-1 (25-23, 18-25, 25-22. 25-19).
With the loss, the Buccaneers finished the season 21-10, 14-6 in conference. BENU finishes as the Cal Pac regular season champions 23-5, 17-2 in conference.
In the last two matches, the Buccaneers serve receive has let them down. The Buccaneers committed 32 receiving errors as both Embry Riddle and Benedictine Mesa had 16 aces apiece.
In the first set, the Benedictine held leads of 10-3 and 13-6 before a 9-1 Bucs run gave Park a 15-14 lead. BENU responded with a 6-2 run of its own to take a 20-17 advantage. The Bucs managed to tie the score at 21, 22 and 23-qll, but a Redhawk kill, and a Bucs error ended the back and forth first set in the home teams favor.
Park Gilbert responded by blitzing the Redhawks in the second set 25-17 to knot the match at 1-1. The Bucs had 16 kills and hit .333 for the set.
The third set would be the pivotal one as midway through the stanza, the Bucs opened a five-point advantage 15-10 and then extended it to 17-11 and looked as though they were in good shape to finish of the third set. The Redhawks then had a 5-0 run to cut their deficit to one before a 4-1 Bucs run took the lead back to four 21-17. Park Gilbert would only win one more point in the set as BENU won eight of the last nine points in the set to take a 2-1 set advantage.
The way the third set ended seemed to take the fight out of the Bucs as the fourth set as the Redhawks built a seven-point lead 15-8 off of a 7-1 run at 8-7 and never looked back. The Redhawks then added to the lead taking the score to 23-13. The Bucs took one last run winning six of the final eight points, but the deficit was too great to overcome as the Redhawks took the match and the Cal Pac Championship.
The Buccaneers led most of the offensive categories once again, having more kills (53-48), assists (49-45), digs (65-61) and blocks (10-8). But they once again led in attack errors (22-20) and receiving errors (16-6).
Individually, Amanda Jonovich had a season high 21 kills, hit .405 and posted another double-double with 10 digs. Makenna Busse had six kills without an error and hit .462 with three blocks. Hattie Patton added another 20+dig match to her resume with 23 while Annika Wallace (24) and Jenifer Lauer (15) combined for 39 of the Bucks 49 assists.
The Bucs will look to right the ship in the Cal Pac conference tournament next week. But to earn a chance for back-to-back NAIA tournament appearances, the Bucs will have to get by Embry Riddle in the opener and then Benedictine Mesa again just to get to the championship match.
The Bucs will face Embry Riddle on Thursday, November 10 at 6 p.m. Arizona time (5 p.m. California time) at the University of Saint Katherine Sports Complex in San Marcos, Calif. If they win, they will play Benedictine Mesa, who has a first-round bye on Friday at 1 p.m. Arizona time.
