The Park University Gilbert men's volleyball team (2-16, 1-11) did its version of a day night double header today as it played RV Warner University (15-5) at Bell Bank Park at noon before taking on No. 1 Benedictine Mesa (21-3, 11-0) at Chandler Gilbert Community College at 7 p.m. The Buccaneers dropped both contest losing to Warner 3-1 (25-20, 18-25, 25-17, 25-20) before falling to the top-ranked Redhawks 3-0 (25-12, 25-18, 25-14).

Match 1 – Warner 3, Park Gilbert 1

The first match against Warner was senior day for five Buccaneer seniors, four of whom have been with the program since its inception in the 2019-20 season. Tyler Yu, Kade Irvine, Nathan Smith and Nico Gutierrez all have been with the program since year one, the fifth player Hunter Miller, joined the next season.

All five were in the starting lineup as the Bucs took on the Royals who were receiving votes in the latest NAIA top-15 poll.

Set one saw the Bucs outhit 13-10 in kills while and 3-0 in aces which made the ultimate difference in a 25-20 first set triumph for the Royals.

The second set saw the Bucs play at a much higher level with 15 kills and only four errors as they hit .458. the Royals still had 14 kills, but it was offset by seven errors. Right side hitter David Shafer was nearly perfect after the first two sets with nine kills and no errors on 10 attempts for at .900 hitting percentage. Six of his nine kills came in the second set as the Bucs won comfortably 25-18.

The third set saw more errors creep back into the Bucs attack as they committed eight hitting errors to go with 10 kills. The Royals played a much cleaner set with only one error and 14 kills (.565 pct) which led to a 25-17 third set win.

The Bucs played much better in the fourth set, but Warner continued its high level of play with 14 more kills and only three errors to hit .379 as they closed out the match. The Bucs had 10 kills and only four errors but just did not have enough offense to keep up with the Royals.

Overall, the Royals had 55 kills for the match, 10 more than the Bucs. They also led in hitting percentage (.348-.222), aces (9-3) and blocks (6-5).

Individually Shafer led the Bucs with 15 kills, hitting .522. Gutierrez had 12 kills in his final home match, hitting .250. Jake Burdick (22) and Hunter Miller (19) combined for 41 of the Bucs 44 assists and Tyler Yu was all over the back row with 14 digs.

Match 2 – Benedictine Mesa 3, Park Gilbert 0

Against the top-ranked team in the country, the Buccaneers faced an uphill battle. The Bucs were unable to climb the hill as they fell to the Redhawks in three sets.

The Bucs found it difficult to get past the BENU block and if they managed to do that the Redhawks backrow defense was there to pick up the pieces.

Park had 24 kills for the match compared to 40 for BENU. BENU also only committed five attack errors. The only area the Redhawks could say they would have wanted to improve upon for the match were service errors where they committed 14. The Redhawks hit .547 for the match and were led by their lone senior Simon Joly who had 15 kills, four aces and hit .583.

The Bucs were led by one Gutierrez who had 10 kills in 24 attempts, hitting .167. The senior also led the team with five digs.

With this matchup against Benedictine Mesa, this is the 13^th match in 18 contests for the Bucs against teams who are ranked or have been ranked at some point this season.

Park Gilbert will close out its season on Wednesday, March 29 as they travel to Glendale, Ariz., to face Arizona Christian for the second time this season. They opened the season with a 3-0 home loss to the Firestorm at the beginning of February.