Spring sports finish 2024 season strong

Concordia men’s baseball team after winning their first game of the series

Photo credit: Kayla Korb

By Cohen Carpenter

School ends in early May for most Concordia students, but for Bulldog softball, baseball and track and field athletes it is a time to chase school records, push for post-season championships and search for one last moment of glory.

Women’s softball was the first of the spring sports to go home last year as the season came to a close on May 1 with a loss on the first day of the Great Plains Athletic Conference championship. The team finished the year with a 22-24 record and played their best softball in the conference, with a GPAC record of 13-9. That led to a fourth seed placement in the conference tournament.

Although Concordia went home without the trophy, the 2024 season was still replete with accomplishments. Megan Eurich set Concordia’s single-season strikeout record with 194. The Nebraska native went 18-10 on the season with a 2.56 ERA. She earned All-GPAC honors, being named to the first team.

Eight other Bulldogs were honored by the conference. Aubrey Bruning, Taylor Glause, Aubriana Krieser and Kylie Shottenkirk were named to the second team. Jennifer Katz, Laycee Josoff, Julia Van Wey and Delanie Voshell were awarded all-GPAC honorable mention.

In 2025 the Bulldogs look to build off the success of 2024, retaining a good portion of the starting roster. Glause and Van Wey are the only members who graduated.

Coach Brock Culler is looking for big contributions from his returning squad.

“Megan Eurich will be the center of attention this season. Coming off a record-breaking last season, she is looking to improve on last season and lead this team,” Culler said. “Kylie Shottenkirk will be one to watch as well. She was an NAIA national player of the week at one-point last season. Aubriana Krieser put on an offensive clinic last season and will be one we hope will help lead our team offensively this season. And there was our shortstop, Laycee Josoff, who made second team all GPAC as a freshman.”

Culler said he feels very good about this team and that this season fans will “see a group that is very proud, energetic, athletic and will compete like crazy.”

Concordia’s baseball team in 2024 tied a school record set in 2021 with 42 wins to go with only 15 losses. The team won the GPAC championship for the third time in team history.

Student athletes making Bulldog history in 2024 include Joey Grabanski, who hit .397 through 57 games, with a 1.337 on-base slugging rate, 88 runs batted in and 26 home runs, the most memorable of which came against an April matchup against Morningside where the senior hit his 78th career long ball, which broke the NAIA record.

Grabanski also holds the NAIA all-time career record for RBIs at 300, and the Concordia records for career batting average at .382 and walks at 129. He currently plays in the Frontier League with the Windy City ThunderBolts.

For coach Ryan Dupic, the GPAC coach of the year, the end of the season and school year means assessing the leaders who will need to step up next season.

“Each summer, our coaching staff gets together to evaluate the culture of the program and to discuss our strengths and opportunities for growth,” Dupic said. “We also reach out to players on our team to get their input on how we can continue to move forward to create the type of experience, growth and success we are aiming for as a program.”

Dupic will be looking to last year’s juniors turned this year’s seniors. He predicted that players such as Ty Nekoliczak, Alex Johnson, Jaiden Quinn and Christian Gutierrez will have “impactful” final years.

Quinn as a junior finished as co-GPAC Player of the Year with Grabanski, as well as making the NAIA All-American first team. The Kansas native batted .387 with a 1.415 OPS while also setting Concordia single-season records in home runs at 27, runs at 81 and walks at 49.

Ten other team members were awarded conference honors. Jay Adams, Alex Blackstead and Matt Rhodes were co-GPAC Players of the Year in the All-GPAC first team. Gutierrez, Jacob Lycan, Nekoliczak and Tanner Tompkins were second team All-GPAC and Jimmy Blumberg, Brad Hallock and Caden Johnson snagged All-GPAC honorable mentions.

Dupic’s goal for the 2025 squad is to be “compete as a team and play with great joy.”
In track and field, the women won their 11th consecutive GPAC championship while the men placed third. Overall, track and field won 10 GPAC events at the championships with six for the women and four for the men.

The season concluded at the NAIA Outdoor National Championships, where the Bulldogs sent 32 athletes to compete in Marion, Indiana. The men’s team placed seventh nationally and the women placed 20th. Zach Zohner at pole vault and Chris Wren at hammer throw won championships. Overall,10 Bulldogs collected All-American awards. Twenty-four men and 26 women received All-GPAC honors.

Coach Matt Beisel, the NAIA Midwest Coach of the Year in 2024, remains focused on his team’s spiritual growth.

“As a staff, we always want to encourage our team, and each other, to grow in their personal faith walk by finding a church home, prioritizing being in the Word and in regular prayer, joining a Bible study group, attending Praise, going to chapel, becoming active in Fellowship of Christian Athletes, being involved with missions, and other things,” he said.

He said this coming season, one of his goals “is to always provide a first-class student-athlete and fan experience.”

“What is most important to me as a head coach over these programs is that God is glorified, in a big way, no matter what our outcomes are. My prayer is that all who follow us see evidence of this all year,” Beisel said.