With a young team, Park University Gilbert men's volleyball coach Vince Zanzucchi expects to take his lumps as his young charges learn the college game. The Bucs learned some of those lessons but showed some promise tonight as they lost 3-1 (12-25, 16-25, 25-23, 12-25) to Arizona Christian in Glendale, Ariz., at the Firestorm Recreation -Center.

The undersized Bucs showed some nerves in the first set as you would expect with only four returning players from last year's team, three of which saw significant action. The Firestorm took advantage of the nerves to easily win the first set 25-12. ACU had 12 kills to only four for Park as the Bucs committed eight attack errors to hit -.138.

The second set saw some improvements on the part of the Buccaneers as they kept things close for a good portion of the set but down 15-13 the Firestorm went on a 10-3 run to close out the set 25-16. While the Bucs improved in the hitting department (7 kills, 6 errors), ACU had an impressive set with 17 kills and on 2 miscues.

It would have been easy for this team to go away in the third set, but the Bucs continued to fight and claw its way back into the match by taking the third set 25-23. ACU held a 4-3 lead in the set, but would not lead again as the Bucs would take the lead and keep the Firestorm at bay. The Bucs had 14 kills in the set and only five errors to hit .310. Park also added two aces. Junior David Shafer had half of the Bucs kills in the set with seven.

The fourth set saw ACU come out with intent to not let this match reach a fifth set as they jumped out to a 16-4 lead from the jump and cruised to a 25-12 fourth set win to close out the match. The Buccaneer attack struggled returned as they hit negatively for the second of their four sets.

Overall, the Bucs hit .017 for the match with 31 kills and 29 errors.

Shafer led the Bucs with 14 kills, but also had 13 errors as he hit .026. Freshman middle Jonah Baich got his career off to a solid start with six kills and no errors as he hit .462 in his Bucs debut. He also added two blocks. Senior Tyler Yu led the team with 11 digs. While junior Jake Burdick had 24 assists.

The Bucs return to action on Monday, February 5 when the travel to Surprise, Ariz., to take on OUAZ at 6 p.m.