The final points stung. The bigger picture did not.

Conant closed its home boys volleyball tournament Saturday with a 25-21, 22-25, 15-11 loss to Taft in the championship match, but the Cougars hardly looked like a team walking away empty-handed.

Buffalo Grove defeated Maine West 22-25, 25-22, 15-11 in the match for third place. Outside hitter Joseph Abraham’s kill gave the Bison a 12-10 lead in the third set. Mateusz Szydlowski struck an ace two points later, giving BG the first of its two match points. Another Abraham kill ended it.

St. Francis finished fifth with a 25-18, 25-8 defeat of Lemont.

Early April tournaments are built less for trophies than for clues, and Conant seemed to collect a few good ones over the course of a long, competitive day.

After winning the Blue Pool in the morning, the Cougars beat Maine West 25-22, 25-18 in a semifinal before pushing Taft, winner of the Red Pool, to three sets in the title match.

“These tournament matches were great for us ahead of our Monday match against Hersey,” Conant coach Drewann Reibel said. “They helped us figure some things out. It’s early. We have a lot of depth, kids going in and out. It’s exciting.”

That depth — and some grit — showed up in the semifinal.

Conant trailed Maine West 15-10 in the opening set before flipping the momentum behind an Evan Cisneros ace that gave the Cougars a 16-15 lead. Josh Yang delivered two late kills to help finish the set, and David Cabaj helped take over in the second, producing a block for a 16-10 lead before adding kills at 18-13 and on match point.

The win avenged a loss to the Warriors on Wednesday.

Saturday’s title match was tighter and tougher.

Taft controlled much of the first set and led 22-19 late before closing it out. Conant responded in the second, turning a 14-11 deficit into a 17-16 lead and getting a key late kill from Gabe Kipta to move ahead 22-18.

But the deciding set put the Cougars in a hole too deep to fully escape.

Taft raced to a 6-1 lead, forcing an early timeout from Reibel. Conant answered late, trimming the deficit to 13-11 on consecutive kills from Yang, but the Eagles won the final two points to secure the championship.

Conant still showed enough balance to like where things may be headed.

Junior setter Oliver Gornikowski finished with 22 assists in the title match, while Kaloyan Kotev and Cabaj had six kills apiece. Senior libero Gavin Kovaka added 10 digs.

For Yang, one of the day’s takeaways was simple.

“Keeping our energy up,” he said. “We need to remember how important that is.”

And for Kovaka, the standard for where Conant wants to be later this spring is already clear.

“We want strong net play,” Kovaka said. “It’s all about the kill shots. We want teams to be scared to play us at the end of the season.”

That’s not what the Cougars looked like by the end of Saturday.

But it might be what they’re building toward.