BELLEVUE, Neb. – Kansas Wesleyan Men’s Basketball dropped its season opener to the Dickinson State Blue Hawks 73-71 on Friday in the Bellevue Chick-Fil-A Classic at the Gordon Lozier Athletic Center.

The game was close throughout with neither team leading by more than six points at any point.

The Coyotes led by five in the second half 44-39 on a 3-pointer by Easton Hunter, but the Blue Hawks drew back even with the Coyotes at 50-all with 10:48 to go, and pushed the lead out to six at 56-50 with 9:02 left.

The Coyotes battled back getting within a point at 65-64 on Thurbil Bile’s score with 4:52 left, and were again within a point with 43 seconds left on a bucket by Alex Littlejohn, but could not find the go-ahead bucket.

Wesleyan came out of the gates slow as well, trailing early but coming back to tie it at 11 on Jun Murdock’s triple with 12:49 to go in the first half.

A later triple by Cory Kaplan gave the Coyotes a 25-20 lead with six minutes left in the first, and Bile’s dunk with 2:17 left in the half gave KWU a 34-28 lead.

Wesleyan led 37-32 at the break.

Dickinson State scored the first five points of the second half to tie it, before Murdock scored to give the Coyotes the lead back.

Hunter’s triple gave the Coyotes their biggest lead in the second half.

Littlejohn led the Coyotes with 17 points and had 10 rebounds. Kaplan scored 14 and Murdock and Bile had 11 each as KWU was 26 of 63 from the field for 41.3 percent, but was just 5 of 18 from 3-point range.

The Coyotes are back in action again on Saturday, taking on Bellevue at 7 p.m. KWU’s home opener is next Friday in the Kansas Wesleyan Coyote Classic at 8 p.m. against Morningside (Iowa) inside Mabee Arena.