The No. 13 nationally ranked Park University women’s volleyball team had an excellent finish in the 2022 NAIA Women’s Volleyball National Championship Quarterfinals falling to No. 4 Corban in three sets on Dec. 3.
The Warriors are the 2022 runner-up in the Cascade Collegiate Conference Championship after losing to No. 1 Eastern Oregon University. Corban took the Mountaineers to five sets before Eastern Oregon claimed the title to mark the fourth time in the history of the NAIA National Tournament that Corban and Park have met.
Park came into the meeting 3-0 against the Warriors and this was the first time these teams have ever faced off in the Quarterfinals. The Pirates had an excellent season celebrated by a perfect 18-0 home record, a share of the regular season Heart of America Athletic Conference Championship and the runner-up in the Heart Tournament.
Park goes down as a 29-6 record on the year with an 18-1 conference record, while the Warriors have had a stellar year at 32-4 and 20-2 of the same. The Pirates were off to a great start in set one with a 9-5 advantage over Corban.
The Pirates had their largest lead of the match with a five-point spread at 14-9, but soon the score would be tied at 15 to force a Park timeout. The Pirates had several players involved in the offense – including Debora Bernardi, Thaynara Jesus, Malaina Hensley and Brenda Arango – to help Park to a 21-19 lead.
Corban’s Rylee Troutman was the CCC Player of the Year and she took over in the final moments of set one with four kills in the Warriors’ last five points to overtake Park 25-22. Corban and Park exchanged leads four times to begin set two, but at 10-9 with Park up, the Warriors began to take control with six of the next seven points to lead 15-11.
The Warriors made it difficult for Park to get any momentum going in the latter part of set two. The Pirates were held to a .036 hitting percentage, while the Warriors hit their high in set two of .290 as Corban went up 2-0 following a 25-16 set win.
Park sophomore opposite hitter Debora Bernardi spikes the ball over the net in the 3-0 loss to Corban in the 2022 NAIA Women’s Volleyball National Championship Quarterfinals on Dec. 3.
Set three began with a big run by the Warriors to give them the 7-1 lead before kills by Hensley and Jesus were part of a four-point swing for the Pirates to bring the score to 10-7. Park looked to rally with a kill by Arango and two straight attack errors by Corban to bring the score to 11-10, leading to a Warrior timeout.
Out of the timeout, Park stayed in reach with multiple ties down the stretch but in the end, three unanswered kills by the Warriors gave them the 18-15 lead, and the final lead change of the 25-18 set and match win. Park was held to its lowest attack percentage of the season of .095, which is their lowest average since last year’s win over Graceland on Oct. 22 when the Pirates hit .085.
An even distribution between Park’s attackers, coupled with the good defensive effort by the Warriors, also led to the first match in 2022 without a player in double-digit kills for Park. Hensley, the 2022 NAIA AVCA Midwest Region Player of the Year, had the most kills for Park with eight, while a fellow AVCA Midwest Region Team member, Bernardi, had seven kills.
Arango had her second highest kill total with five and she led Park with three block assists. Jullia Alvarez, also a 2022 NAIA AVCA Midwest Region member, earned 22 assists and recorded seven digs.
As a team, Corban held the attack percentage advantage of .210 and more than doubled Park in total blocks, 11 to five. This closes out the 2022 season in the NAIA Women’s Volleyball National Championship Quarterfinals, Park’s seventh appearance in school history in the round of eight.