Garner leads women’s soccer to victory over Waldorf University
Photo description: The women’s soccer team gathers to celebrate their victory as sophomore Kierstynn Garner walks forward to ring the victory bell
Photo credit: Esther Molina
Madeline Peters
Sports Editor
The Concordia women’s soccer team beat the Waldorf University Warriors 2-1 at home Saturday evening in their second-to-last regular season game.
The Bulldogs closed out the game against the new member of the Great Plains Athletic Conference with two more goals for sophomore Kierstynn Garner.
Garner went right to work in the first half, scoring in 3’ after taking a pass from fellow sophomore Savannah Andrews. Garner kicked the pass under the goalie, who had come away from the goal, and easily kicked it in, giving Concordia the early lead.
Garner did the same thing 30 minutes later, this time with a pass from sophomore Niah Kirchner. The goalie came out, Garner took the ball around and placed it square in the goal. The Bulldogs kept the defense on, making the score 2-0 at half.
Waldorf came out more defensively in the second half and kept Concordia out of scoring range. The Bulldogs had three less shots for the second half than they did in the first. The Warriors also managed to score in the 88’ to prevent a shutout.
Concordia outshot Waldorf 13-4. Garner led the team in shots, with all three of hers on goal. Junior Kassidy Johnson and senior Grace Soenksen each added two shots as well.
The Bulldogs also had more corner kicks, with six versus the Warriors’ four. Senior goalie Bradi Ore recorded one save for the night.
Head coach Nick Smith was pleased with the win against Waldorf. He was excited for the university to be added to regular competition, with their official addition in the GPAC schedule starting in the 2024-25 academic year.
“It’s good for the conference,” Smith said, “They’re a little bit light in terms of numbers for their roster, but they’ve been competitive all season long. And they’re certainly better than what their record states on paper. They come, they play and they compete. They made life difficult for us tonight, but ultimately we did enough where we earned the win.”
Though Garner was able to add to her impressive season goal count, now set at 17, the second-half defense from Waldorf made extending the lead difficult. Regardless, Smith was still proud of the way the team fought.
“We’re late in season now and every point is vital, and so every conference win that you can sort of scrape together, you’re certainly going to take those,” said Smith.
With the GPAC tournament looming at the beginning of November, Concordia women’s soccer is ready for the big challenge of winning the championship. Smith is confident in his team’s ability to go toe to toe with the other teams.
“To win! Honestly! I think we’ve got a team that really has all of the pieces to make a really deep run,” Smith explained. “I think we’ve shown over the course of our regular season schedule that we can compete with anyone in conference – and I think we’re hungry for it.”
The women’s team is now 11-3-3 overall and 7-1-3 in the GPAC. Their final regular season game is on Oct. 25 against school rival Doane University in Crete, with kickoff set for 7:15 p.m.
