Oct. 17—MITCHELL — The scores and the standings are important in the Great Plains Athletic Conference, which is annually the nation’s most competitive NAIA volleyball league.
But when the Dakota Wesleyan University volleyball team was at 9-8 and took a five-set home loss to the College of Saint Mary on Oct. 3, head coach Lindsay Wilber had a team meeting with her squad and told them not to worry about the score or their record.
“We had a team meeting at that point and we said, ‘Just play,'” Wilber said. “I think we were putting a little too much pressure on ourselves because we have a goal at the end of getting to the national tournament, and we decided it’s time to play and simplify what we were doing.”
Since then, DWU has won four matches in a row and won 12 of the 13 sets they’ve played. Wednesday’s 3-1 home win over Morningside was the Tigers’ 13th win of the season, already matching what the Tigers did in 2024-25 with six matches remaining.
“We started the season great and we beat a couple of ranked opponents, and then we went into a little lull there and lost to Dordt and CSM at home. I like how we’ve responded,” Wilber said. “… I think we have a team that is just trusting each other more and trusting the process of what we’re doing.”
The Tigers’ top nine players this season in terms of sets played are all returners from 2024, a season in which DWU was 13-16. Lessons were learned in the process of that season, and DWU is now seeing that experience pay off on the court.
“I think this is a team that is trusting in our training,” junior libero Lizzie Tyler said. “We are such a tight-knit group of girls, and you can just see the love that we have for each other. I think that really shows in the way we play and work together.”
Tyler is one of the key cogs for DWU, leading the GPAC in digs per set (5.42) and overall digs (417) through 21 games played. Teammate and junior setter Kayleigh Hybertson is the conference leader in assists per set at 9.77, providing a strong core in the two rows of the DWU lineup.
DWU’s attackers have also made strides forward to make the Tigers a more dangerous offensive team. Evy Knoblock, Lily Ranschau and Karly VanDerWerff are the Tigers’ three leading hitters, all with more kills this season in 21 matches than they had in all of 2024, when DWU was 13-16. Knoblock has 254 kills, with 194 from Ranschau and 189 from VanDerWerff.
Wilber said her team makes a concerted effort to hit hard when attacking and to go for kills, especially late in matches. DWU ranks fourth in the GPAC in hitting percentage at .178,
“I hate tipping (at the net) and so I’m always telling them, especially just when you’re going down the stretch, swing,” Wilber said. “Swing hard, we’ll cover you. You can see that even in the long rallies, we’re getting really good, hard swings.”
The Tigers (13-8, 7-4 GPAC) have hopes of returning to the NAIA tournament, like they did in 2021 and 2022, reaching the final eight teams in 2022. Earlier in the season, DWU was ranked as high as No. 22 in the nation, although DWU is among the receiving votes category in the most recent coaches poll issued Oct. 15.
The coaches’ poll no longer carries weight in how the national tournament field is selected, but the objective metrics show some good signs for a potential NAIA tournament appearance for DWU. The Massey Ratings have DWU ranked 27th, while DWU is 37th in the NAIA’s most recent RPI rankings, with a strength of schedule ranked No. 9 out of 206 teams. The RPI and Massey Ratings are among the two metrics the national selection committee will look at when selecting the field of 48 teams. The national tournament field is announced on Nov. 14, and the opening round takes place on Nov. 22.
The last six matches of the regular season won’t be easy for DWU. It starts at 3 p.m. Saturday against No. 4-ranked Concordia (Neb.) at the Christen Family Athletic Center in Mitchell. After a road match at Waldorf, DWU hosts No. 3 Northwestern on Blue and White Days weekend on Friday, Oct. 24, and then hosts No. 24 Dakota State in the second half of a home-and-home series on Monday, Oct. 27, which will be the Tigers’ home regular-season finale. The regular season ends with matches at Dordt on Oct. 29 and at Briar Cliff on Nov. 4.
Wilber said one of the team’s best skills is that it is a group that knows when it is not playing as well as they can and they have an ability to adjust. She used Wednesday’s home win over Morningside as an example, which included a first set in which DWU was completely out of sorts and lost 25-13.
“It’s such a sport of momentum and as a team, we never panicked because this team is known to take a little while to get going. We didn’t panic and just talked about what we needed to do better,” Wilber said. “This is a pretty trustworthy group. They know how they need to adjust to play winning volleyball.”
