Concordia volleyball “out-families” Dordt on senior day
The Concordia volleyball team “huddles” together in between plays (photo from 2024 season).
Photo credit: Josiah Seabaugh
By Kai Olbrich
Sports Editor
Senior day was a celebration and success for the No. 2 Concordia University volleyball team as they swept Great Plains Athletic Conference foes, the Dordt Defenders, 3-0 on Sept. 28.
The sets were all quite close, finishing 25-20, 25-23, and 25-23. While the Bulldogs certainly produce blowout sets, they frequently are on the winning side of marginal set victories.
Senior Molli Martin believes that their fearlessness at the end of sets is what helps them close out important points.
“I think sometimes we struggle to start sets, but when we close sets, we don’t really have a lot of fear in the end. We swing, we go through everything fearless, which helps us close out these sets,” Martin said.
As Martin referenced, Concordia struggled in some of the early stages of the match, especially in the first set, as they went behind 6-12. Coach Ben Boldt called a timeout to remind his players to stay aggressive.
“The timeout that we called was just kind of a settle down and a reminder, hey, let’s stay aggressive, let’s set the tone of the match. And so, I think that we flipped our mentality at that point in time and got the match under control,” Boldt said.
Senior Ashley Keck highlighted one of the team’s mottos, out-family, as a reason for their success. They trust each other and are there for one another.
“Out-family, that’s a big motto that we’ve kind of taken on the past couple of months. And ultimately, what that means is, can we out-family be there for one another, especially in these big moments, so that we can put away games like these.”
The Bulldogs hit slightly below their usual standard, .111 throughout the match, but they held Dordt to just .49. Senior Addie Kirkegaard believes that the team’s mentality is what helps them be so good on defense.
“I think it’s just our mentality is, Ben [Boldt] always says, ball hit hands, ball go down. So, I feel like we really dive into that, and that’s probably one of the best parts of the game, getting a good block. So that’s one of our big things we work on every day in practice,” Kirkegaard said.
Kirkegaard helped the team with three block assists and two kills. Keck led the team in kills with 10, junior Ava Greene had the best kill percentage with .245, freshman Ella Brueggemann had 18 assists, and her sister Emma Brueggemann had a team-high 18 digs.
The Bulldogs are 13-1, 6-0 GPAC, and will travel to Sioux City, Iowa, on Oct. 3 to face off against Morningside.
