The ADM volleyball team has taken its lumps at its last two tournaments, as the Tigers’ 12-13 record indicates.

But a strong finish to Saturday’s tournament in Dubuque showed ADM’s resiliency and renewed the players’ confidence heading into the final four weeks of the regular season, which starts Tuesday night with a conference matchup at Winterset.

After ADM managed just 10 points total in a two-set loss to Cedar Rapids-Kennedy, the Tigers made the next two matches closer, though both were losses. ADM then won the consolation bracket with wins over Cedar-Rapids Xavier and Davenport West.

ADM head coach Mary Beth Scott said her girls didn’t “show up” against Kennedy, but she liked the way they played the next two matches. She said she’s happy with the team’s finish, and said winning the consolation bracket was important for her team’s psyche moving forward.

“I think it’s huge. And again, you just never know how you’re going to do at the Dubque tournament,” she said. “We played some really good schools — we played Davaenport West, we played Cedar Rapids Xavier and those were tough matches … so these are all, besides Xavier, much bigger schools than what we are.”

As Scott has alluded to in the past, she purposely has the Tigers play bigger schools in tournaments. Three weeks ago against primarily Class 5A competition, ADM lost all six matches at the Valley high school tournament in West Des Moines.

ADM (12-13) rebounded from the Valley tournament to win three straight matches, two against conference teams, in large part because of the valuable experience they gained playing faster and taller teams.

It was  a similar situation Saturday in Dubuque, and Scott expects the Tigers to again run off some wins following a string of difficult matchups.

“Again, we are not as strong as we have been in the past and so we were really happy with our finish,” she said. “The girls had a good time, and I’m looking forward to Winterset and Carlisle now that we’ve played this tougher competition.”