The Kansas Wesleyan men are playing their best volleyball at the right time.
Following a hard-fought 3-1 loss to No. 3-ranked Missouri Valley on Friday the Coyotes quickly bounced back with a 3-0 (25-19, 25-21, 25-20) Senior Day victory over Culver-Stockton in a Heart of America Conference match Saturday afternoon inside Mabee Arena.
KWU improved to 4-11 in the conference and 8-14 overall; Culver-Stockton fell to 1-13 and 2-23.
"That's a sign of maturity and growth," coach Dustin Sahlmann said. "Young guys learning how to bounce back the next day after things don't go exactly how you want them and we're still able to do the job that we were trying to do."
Sahlmann said a meeting earlier in the week paid dividends.
"We had a pretty extensive team meeting on Monday before practice and that was part of it," he said. "Some guys got to express some things that hadn't been expressed before. They also know we have an opportunity to still make the conference tournament if we can win X amount of matches and that's what they're trying to accomplish."
Tied 14-14 in the first set the Coyotes took control with a 10-3 run and finished it on a kill by Ryan Wagner.
A 10-4 burst in the second set extended KWU's 10-9 lead to 20-13. Culver-Stockton used a 5-1 surge to get within 24-21 but an attack error gave the Coyotes victory and a 2-0 lead in the match.
Culver-Stockton led the third set 8-6 when Justin Burras took the serve. Eight consecutive points followed, and the Coyotes led 14-8. The Wildcats got within 19-18 before three straight KWU points extended the advantage to 22-18. CSC narrowed the gap to 22-20 before consecutive kills by Jaron Lindsay and Colin Lindo ended the set and match.
"I was really happy for the focus we had today coming off a pretty emotional hard fought match last night," Sahlmann said. "We're more together. Even on Tuesday night against Grand View we weren't a hundred percent together but were more so than we had been. That sign of growth and where we're trying to get to."
The Coyotes hit .182 percent and were led by Lindsay's 11 kills while Burras had eight and Lindo six. Ethan Ricketts had 22 assists and Burras four service aces. Defensively, Burras led the way with 10 digs and Wagner six block assists.
Culver-Stockton hit .103 percent and was led by Henry Reeves' 13 kills.
Wesleyan's two seniors, Lindo and Angel Diaz, were recognized during a pregame ceremony.