Volleyball senior day game leads to 3-1 win against Morningside

Junior outside hitter Ashley Keck (6) prepares to set the ball over the net.

Photo credit: Josiah Seabaugh

By Maddy Peters

Sports Editor

The Concordia volleyball team beat the Morningside University Mustangs 3-1 on senior day Saturday in Seward.

Concordia celebrated six seniors including Rebecca Gebhardt, Kelsi Heard, Cassidy Knust, Macy McClain, DeLaney Novy and Ashlyn Wischmeier. Coach Ben Boldt praised their grit and the talent they provided to the team after the game.

“We’re super thankful that they chose to be Bulldogs, and this program wouldn’t be where it is today without them,” said Boldt.

That grit mindset Boldt has been drilling into the team came in handy once again this season after a rough first set against the Mustangs. Concordia suffered from numerous attack errors that ended in a .095 attack percentage, while Morningside hit for .324 in the first. The Bulldogs were able to claw some points to make the set close, but Morningside took the set 25-20 to put them ahead.

Concordia’s blocking issues from the previous night’s game against Briar Cliff reared their head again as Morningside was able to squeeze numerous kills past the outstretched arms of the likes of senior Gabi Nordaker, juniors Addie Kierkegaard and Ashley Keck and sophomore Ella Waters.

“Morningside hits the ball really hard,” said Boldt. “We were lined up a little bit too far inside early in the match, but then in the second set, we adjusted further toward the pin really that took them [Morningside] out of what they wanted to do, so that was kind of the difference in that.”

Those adjustments were crucial for the rest of the game. The Mustangs were unable to hit above a .150 for the rest of the afternoon and even had a -.033 in the fourth set.

The second set was a shift in Concordia’s favor with a seven-point run in the beginning to put the team firmly ahead of Morningside. The Mustangs came back a bit towards the end, but the Bulldogs closed it out 25-19.

The third set was the best hitting Concordia had for the day with a .300 percentage with 16 kills and four errors. Regardless, Morningside kept the Bulldogs on their toes. After a six-point run from Concordia, Morningside responded with a four-point run to nearly even our the score. The set was a back-and-forth that Concordia just managed to pull ahead of to win 25-20.

The Bulldogs made quick work of the fourth and final set, beating out the Mustangs 25-15. The team hit for a .292 percentage, nearly matching their accuracy in the third set — only three errors for Concordia and forcing 10 for Morningside.

That push to the very end is what makes Concordia such a dangerous team to go up against, but the moments when that focus slips can lead to some mistakes. Boldt felt that though the interrupted transition from warm-up to gameplay had some influence on the first set, the team came through in the end and made up for its first frame mistakes.

“We finished well, you know, with senior day being today I think that there was maybe kind of tough to start off fast with the different structure to how we started the game, but I thought that we stayed tough mentally and we finished it up,” said Boldt.

Four players ended with double digit kills. Nordaker finished with 13 kills on the day and moved up to fifth in career kills with 1,320. Keck was just behind with 12 and Kierkegaard and Waters had 10 apiece. Junior Lily Psencik had the most assists with 21 and Gebhardt had the most digs with 17.

The team is now 16-2 overall and 9-1 in the Great Plains Athletic Conference. The team travels to Omaha next to face College of Saint Mary on Oct. 16.