Volleyball, soccer, football ramp up for the beginning of fall sports seasons
The Concordia volleyball team prepares for their game against Oklahoma City University on Aug. 17
Photo credit: Maddy Peters
By Maddy Peters, Sports Editor
Concordia’s 2024-25 athletic year is underway with volleyball and men’s soccer teams already in action and football and women’s soccer kicking things off the first week of school.
Concordia fall sports teams all finished their regular season in the top four of the Great Plains Athletic Conference in 2023.
Volleyball tied with Northwestern College and University of Jamestown for first in the regular season with a 14-2 conference record. Women’s soccer was second with a record of 8-1-3 and men’s soccer was third with a 7-0-4 record. Football tied for fourth with Dakota Wesleyan University and Midland University with a 5-5 record.
The volleyball team has their work cut out for them coming off a 2023 season of ups and downs. The team rose to as high as No. 1 in the National Association
of Intercollegiate Athletics rankings but fell short of both the conference championship and the NAIA quarterfinals. It finally bested rival Jamestown only to find a new obstacle in Northwestern.
The GPAC preseason coaches’ poll put Concordia at No. 2 and Northwestern at No. 1. In the NAIA preseason poll, Concordia ranked No. 4 with Northwestern at No. 2. Concordia lost two mainstays of the team, Bree Burtwistle and Camryn (Opfer) Fehlhafer, who will be difficult to replace.
Coach Ben Boldt has faith in the team and while the offense is still developing the current plan is to switch to a more traditional two-setter offense instead of a single setter like Burtwistle.
“You know right, now kind of going in at the beginning of the season, we’ll probably be in a two-setter offense, which always allows us to have three hitters,” Boldt said. “I think one thing that we kind of pride ourselves on is being a balanced team, so hopefully we’re hard to defend cause we have a lot of good attackers.
Women’s soccer exceeded expectations with a sophomore-heavy team in the 2023 season. Kierstynn Garner, Niah Kirchner, Savannah Andrews, Hannah Kile, Elena Ruiz and Sierra Springer were among the players who helped lead the team to the GPAC semifinals and a tie against top-of-the-conference Hastings College.
The team was recently ranked No. 2 in the GPAC conference preseason poll behind rival Hastings, a team they tied in the previous season. The team did not receive votes in the NAIA preseason poll, but coach Nick Smith has a plan to put the team on the map.
“The recognition comes from playing top-level opponents, and in particular non-conference top-level opponents, and being able to get results against them; to be competitive against them,” Smith said. “So last year, we played Benedictine in our non-conference, but all of the other opponents were good, not great teams.”
“So, one of the things we did in the off-season is we tried to generate a schedule that if we’re successful through it would allow us to start getting into that spotlight and start getting that sort of recognition,” Smith said.
Half of the team’s nonconference games are with nationally ranked teams. Columbia College was ranked No. 12 in the preseason poll released on Aug. 14 and Benedictine College placed at No. 18. Bellevue University did not make the top 25 but received 12 votes. Concordia also has a game against National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III school Nebraska Wesleyan University to round out competition before the start of conference play.
Concordia men’s soccer had a great record last year, with their only loss in the GPAC quarterfinals against Dordt University. The team ranked as high as No. 18 in the NAIA and was known for their defensive capabilities.
However, that loss showed in the preseason NAIA poll as the team was unable to make the top 25, receiving 38 votes. The team maintained a high ranking in the GPAC preseason poll, seeded No. 2 behind 2023 conference champion Briar Cliff University.
The team has leaned into their defensive nature, especially with goalies Gabriel Mendoza and Nolan Fuelberth. Some other returning defensive veterans include Iker Casanova, Braden Spath and Michael Lindberg.
Coach Jason Weides noted the defensive capabilities and used spring and preseason opportunities to work on their skills.
“Ultimately we didn’t concede many goals last year, so maybe it’s counterintuitive to work so much on the defensive side, but we just felt like there was an opportunity to grow and we felt like we could truly make it our identity and get really, really good at it,” Weides said.
The team only allowed 13 goals last season with seven shutouts. The team has been working to perfect what has been successful, and they have bought into the Bulldog brick wall mentality.
Our guys have really taken that on board, they’ve—I think our returners have done a great job, our newcomers have as well, but our returners have really become coaches on the field because we focus so much on that side,” Weides said.
Bulldog football may have had an even record last year, but those numbers do not tell the whole story behind those games.
The 2023 opener was against the defending national champions Northwestern and the score was 48-35. Homecoming against Dakota Wesleyan University was another close game with a 16-12 loss.
The game against Midland University went into double overtime with a 2-point loss. The competitive GPAC slated Concordia as the fifth seed in the preseason coaches’ poll behind Northwestern, Morningside, Dordt and Midland. Coach Patrick Daberkow makes a point not to focus on seeding, just on how the team can win.
“We’re always just trying to win the next game,” Daber- kow said. “So like, whoever that is, whatever that is, we have big goals and it’s hard to articulate that outside of ‘we just wanna win the next game.’ I mean, that’s all that matters,” said Daberkow.
