Track and field, baseball, softball teams amp up for spring season
Adrianna Rodencal (left) wins the 100-meter hurdles at the Concordia Invitational on April 5, 2024.
Photo credit: Kayla Korb
By Maddy Peters
Sports Editor
This article is featured in the December print issue of the Sower newspaper.
The end of the fall semester brings the beginning of spring sports for Concordia, and the track and field, baseball and softball teams have been preparing for their upcoming seasons and are almost ready to show off what they have worked on over the fall.
Track and field starts their season earlier than the other two, with indoor events on Dec. 13-14 at the annual Bulldog Early Bird Meet. Coach Matt Beisel has been working with a women’s team eager to maintain the Great Plains Athletic Conference dominance and wants to bring the men’s team back to that standard.
“[We want to] win indoor and outdoor GPAC championships for both men and women, and then place in the top 10 at indoor and outdoor nationals — top four, if at all possible,” said Beisel.
The women’s side took a graduation hit, losing pole vaulters Amira Cummings and Josie Puelz; sprinters Jenna Esch, Kellie Rhodes and Jordan Koepke; distance runners Kylahn Freiburg, Julie McIntyre and Rylee (Haecker) Philippi; multi Amy Richert; and throwers Kamryn Pokorney and Emma Lloyd.
The men’s team lost athletes such as distance runner Calvin Rohde; jumper Joel Rathe; throwers Brady Klute, Darien Semedo and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics hammer throw champion Chris Wren; and, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics national champ pole vaulter Zach Zohner.
“Both our men and women graduated impact players,” said Beisel. “Women, in spite of the graduates, are still very strong.”
Beisel noted numerous names of athletes still competing, including the junior speedster Adriana Rodencal and other sprinters, including junior Kayla Kirchner and seniors Trinity Tuls and Colby Sugden. The distance crew includes sophomores Trey Robertson and Aiden Limback; juniors Hannah Beintema, Keegan Beisel, Westley Determan and Trevor Kuncl; and seniors Jack Ellis and Thomas Gorline.
On the field side, the team has jumpers like juniors Josi Noble and Aaron Spivey and sophomores Zoey Walker and Kiki Nyanok. Pole vaulters include juniors Kayla Svoboda and Mason Ostermeyer and sophomore Jax Jacobsen. Throwers include seniors Abigail Gerber, Abi Wohlgemuth, Austin Rozelle and Gretchen Stottlemeyre and juniors Carson Fehlhafer and Matthew Boyer.
Incoming freshmen already have made an impact on the team, especially in the cross country scene. Freshman Vaughn Hendrickson made a splash for the men’s team, which won its first GPAC cross country title since 2012, and became the school’s first men’s All-American since Ben Sievert in 2013.
The team has recruited other high-level athletes to the roster for the coming season. Perry Chadwick of Cheyenne Wells, Colo., broke multiple school records and won state championships in the 4×200, 4×400 and 4×800 relays, as well as the open 400-meter dash.
Easton Fries helped take Chase County High School in Western Nebraska to back-to-back state titles and was part of the two-time 4×400 relay team state champions. Jaxon Lipker of Nebraska was the state high jump runner-up and won three district titles as well as two conference championships.
On the women’s side, Harper Boche won three state shot put titles and two discus state championships. Adysen McCarter won state titles in the triple jump and 100-meter dash and was part of the 4×400 relay state champion team. Lillee Richard won two state pole vault championships and was a four-time regional champion in the vault.
Sophie Wohlgemuth, sister of Abi Wohlgemuth, is throwing and playing for the Concordia volleyball team. Wohlgemuth is better known throughout Nebraska for her time on the Lincoln Lutheran High School volleyball team and has received numerous awards from the Lincoln Journal Star and Omaha World Herald for her athleticism.
Baseball received a NAIA preseason ranking of No. 20 on Nov. 6 after a 42-15 2024 season. Coach Ryan Dupic’s team tied for first in the conference season and finished first in the GPAC baseball tournament. The team also solidified itself as a hard-hitting team with 499 total runs, including 113 home runs.
Bulldog baseball players celebrate during a doubleheader sweep of the Dakota Wesleyan University Tigers on April 27, 2024. Photo: Kayla Korb
The big highlight was when Joey Grabanski became the NAIA’s home run king and the first NAIA player to hit 80 career home runs. Grabanski graduated with 88 career homers and a single season record of home runs in a season with 27 in 2023.
Grabanski’s record is in play for senior Jaiden Quinn, however, who currently has 73 career home runs and has gone run for run with Grabanski in both the 2023 and 2024 seasons.
One of the challenges the team faced was graduating most of its starting outfield, including Grabanski, Jay Adams and Alec Blakestad. Dupic, however, is not worried about gaps in the defense and believes the team will step up to the task.
“It’s been a good sense of competition,” said Dupic. “We have some newcomers who came from other places and then we have some returners like [sophomore] Alex Draper who got to play a little bit last year. We have some newcomer players like Bronx Lewis and Jaeden Jordahl and Kade Spomer and Layton Rivas and some other newcomers who’ve been a good mix.”
The team had to restructure its pitching bench to account for the graduation of Caden Johnson, Blake Benson and Jacob Lycan. Senior Christian Gutierrez, one of the top pitchers, has been completing student teaching, which has restricted his ability to practice.
Baseball has been surprisingly silent on its schedule for the season, but Dupic said it is in its final stages of completion as of writing.
“The baseball schedule moves a little too slow for everybody’s liking, but we have all of our games planned with the exception of a couple of invitations,” said Dupic. “We just sent some information on to our athletic administration, and they’re gonna get that publicized here soon.”
The team planned a tough season with plenty of opportunities to assert itself against ranked opponents, as well as the usual GPAC challengers like Doane University, which received votes in the preseason poll.
“But some of the highlights would be we’ll play Oklahoma City and Bellevue who are both ranked; we’ll play Southeastern who made the [NAIA] World Series and won the national championship two years ago, we play them in a four game set,” Dupic said. “We’ll play some really good competitions early in the year and definitely get challenged and then obviously playing in the GPAC as well near the end of the season.”
Coach Brock Culler’s softball team came out of a 23-25 season in 2024 with a real turnaround, going 13-9 in the GPAC and tying for third in the regular season.
The team was unable to get out of pod play in the conference tournament, but the season showed that they have the ability to move forward and win big. Culler’s goal is to emphasize this and keep the team to a high standard.
“We talk about a lot of things, but we had a lot of momentum at the end of last year,” said Culler. “One of our biggest goals is to keep that momentum going and keep getting better. I think our biggest thing is gonna be our offense. We want to be consistent with our offense this year.”
Offense was one of the key concerns for Culler coming out of the 2024 season and he wants to cement the team’s hitting skills before their first games in February against teams like No. 18 Benedictine College, No. 24 Baker University and former GPAC school University of Sioux Falls.
“We were a little sporadic last year,” said Culler. “We’d have two or three players really performing at a high level and then we’d have like a drop off. And then we’d have another set go and it was just really kind of up and down. But our hitting workouts this fall and this winter have been finding some consistency and depth in our lineup. If you’re gonna ask me right now, I think we have it, but now, you know, we just gotta go out and play.”
All-GPAC senior pitcher Megan Eurich is back for her last season at the mound after breaking the record for strikeouts in a season with 194. Culler is confident that Eurich will find support in junior Taryn Ganstrom and sophomore Kaylee Denison. Denison was a common backup for Eurich at the beginning of the previous season, but struggled on the mound and allowed 72 runs in her 49 innings pitched.
