GALESBURG, Ill. ­— The Knox College athletics department announced its Male and Female Athletes of the Week for events played between Oct. 14-20. This week the honor went to outside hitter Caroline Wolters of the volleyball team and forward Kestervens Dera of the men's soccer squad.

Wolters, a senior from Ames, Iowa, had perhaps the best week of her Prairie Fire career over three matches in which she racked up 39 kills with a .226 attack percentage, 34 digs, seven assists, four aces and three blocks. She set personal highs with 20 kills and three blocks in a tough five-set defeat against Rockford University on Tuesday, not to mention 19 digs. She followed that performance up by leading Knox to its first victory of the season, a sweep of Beloit, by swinging at a career-best .333 rate with eight kills, and matched that percentage the next day against Grinnell with 11 more kills.

A sophomore from Palm Bay, Florida, Dera just returned to the pitch after recovering from an injury and played sparingly in the Prairie Fire's first Midwest Conference win on Tuesday, a 2-1 defeat of Cornell College. But he returned with a vengeance at Beloit on Saturday, scoring all three Knox goals in a 3-0 road victory, lifting the Prairie Fire into third place in the MWC standings. He is the first Knox player to collect a hat trick in two years and leads the team in scoring despite missing half of the 14 games to date.

The Knox Athletes of the Week will be announced every Tuesday afternoon throughout the athletic calendar.