Concordia Football Narrowly Loses to Dordt
Madeline Peters
Sower Staff
The Concordia football team narrowly lost to the Dordt University Defenders 29-28 Saturday afternoon. After a long-fought game, the Bulldogs lost the chance to take the lead after an interception.
The first quarter was a defensive battle between the two teams. No one was able to make big plays and score points. Sophomore Lukas Coe intercepted a Dordt pass, but the offense was unable to utilize that drive to score.
Both teams managed to put points on the board in the second quarter. Dordt scored a touchdown off an 88-yard pass, but Concordia quickly responded with a touchdown of their own off a 27-yard pass to senior Korrell Koehlmoos. The teams remained tied at the end of the half.
Concordia received the ball to start off the second half and had a promising drive to the end zone. They were stopped within field goal range and attempted to move ahead of the Defenders. However, the goal attempt was blocked by Dordt and returned for a touchdown, giving them the lead.
The Bulldogs found their touchdown on the next drive after a 22-yard pass to sophomore Austin Jablonski, tying the teams again. Dordt made another touchdown in the quarter, but their extra point attempt failed. Concordia pulled ahead by one point with 33 seconds on the clock after a touchdown 6-yard pass to senior Luke Lang.
Concordia started off the fourth quarter with an incredible 66-yard pass to Lang to take the team downfield. Jablonski finished off the drive with a touchdown off a 14-yard pass. Dordt scored another touchdown, but they failed a 2-point conversion, leaving them two points behind Concordia. Dordt managed to hit a field goal with about four minutes left in the game, giving them the 1-point lead that won them the game.
Sophomore quarterback D.J. McGarvie threw for 458 yards, making 34 out of 67 pass attempts. McGarvie was also the star runner of the game with 22 rushing yards. Lang had the most receiving yards with 117. Koehlmoos followed behind with 96 yards.
The Bulldogs were in for a rough game against Dordt University. Concordia has not beaten them since 2017. Coach Daberkow had this to say about the results: “I think it went better than the years that we played them previously, but not good enough to win, and so it was disappointing.”
Losing by one point is certainly better than years past, where the team lost to Dordt by at least 19 points. Ultimately, Daberkow was proud of what the team had accomplished during the game.
“Our guys believe in each other and I think that we’re going to learn from it, and we’ll hopefully not repeat any mistakes; take the loss with pride and move forward and do the next right thing… I thought that we had guys playing their guts out,” said Daberkow.
The team now has a record of 3-4. They play again on Oct. 29 against Midland University in Fremont.
