Thursday's back-to-back wins over Pacific Union marked the most dominant victories all season by the Park University Gilbert men's volleyball team. The Buccaneers won match one by scores of 25-11, 25-22 and 22-11 and match two by scores of 25-18, 25-10 and 25-10.
Match one saw arguably the best performance all season from middleblocker Xander Thesz, who was able to exploit mismatches all day and finished match one off with back-to-back kills. He finished the first match with a game high 16 kills and five blocks; the six-foot-seven freshman finished the game with an impressive .652 hitting percentage.
Although match one was mostly dominant, the Pioneers threatened to steal set two, which head coach Clay Webb credited to some unforced errors and some mental lethargy, but the Bucs responded to the challenge and bounced back quickly to dominate the rest of the day.
"From that point on, I challenged them to be more mentally mature if you really want to be a better team, so we challenged them as a coaching staff to do some things as the matches continued and I thought they did a really good job," head coach Clay Webb said.
Other notable performances included that of last week's CalPac Offensive and Defensive Players of the Week, James Contreras and Kale Rubin. Contreras added 10 kills and a .471 hitting percentage, while Rubin tied Nico Gutierrez for a game-high 10 digs.
Although the games were never really in doubt, the Buccaneers did face some adversity with their two-time CalPac Setter of the Week, Hunter Miller, out due to an injury. It was freshman Cooper Dana who filled Miller's shoes and did not shy away from the opportunity.
After an 18-point set one in game two, the Pioneers took an early lead in set two, but Dana forced three service errors in a row to give the Buccaneers a lead and spark a 22-8 run that ended the match.
"Cooper's a great kid. We've got some great depth and it's just good to have a guy that you're comfortable with and confident in to say, "hey, so-and-so is down" and have that next man up mentality and Cooper did great," Webb said.
In the end, Dana wrote his way into the Park Gilbert record books with nine service aces which shattered the old record of five; he also tallied 38 assists, four digs and two block assists in game one and 35 assists, four digs and a kill in game two.
The Buccaneers will have a chance to end their season on a five-game winning streak against Pacific Union tomorrow at 4 p.m
