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Most thrilling moments: sport-by-sport

By Jacob Knabel on Jun. 28, 2017 in Athletic Announcements

In concluding our series of ‘top moments,’ we take a look at each of Concordia’s varsity sport offerings that predate the formation of the Great Plains Athletic Conference (2000). For each of these sports, we relive both the top GPAC era and top pre-GPAC era moment.

Baseball

GPAC era: We don’t even have to go back two whole months for the most thrilling Concordia baseball moment of the GPAC era – and perhaps the most thrilling moment in the entire history of the program. Picked to place third in the conference preseason poll, the Bulldogs outperformed expectations behind a veteran group of position players and a blossoming young pitching staff. It took only three years for head coach Ryan Dupic to transform Concordia into a championship level program. The 2017 Bulldogs shook off an 0-3 start to GPAC play, winning 22 of their next 28 games against conference opponents while locking up the program’s first league title since 1986. Memorable moments along the way were wins over Jamestown (regular season and national tournament), the four-game weekend series at Dakota Wesleyan that clinched the GPAC title and the run to the conference tournament championship game while hosting all the way through the postseason. Dupic’s squad included first team All-GPAC selections in Casey Berg, Jason Galeano and Jason Munsch.

Pre-GPAC era: Conference titles have been elusive in the history of the Concordia baseball program. One common denominator between the 1986 and 2017 league championship squads: both went a perfect 4-0 against rival Doane. As part of a compacted conference slate, the ’86 Bulldogs went 8-4 in Nebraska Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play and claimed the title under head coach Reuben Stohs. The star of the show was shortstop Lyle Trautman, who batted .429 with five home runs and 30 RBIs while setting many new school single-season records at the time.

Men’s Basketball

GPAC era: A run to the 2005 national title game.

Pre-GPAC era: The 1991-92 team takes the national tournament by storm.

Complete details of men’s basketball top moments can be found HERE.

Women’s Basketball

GPAC era: 2014-15 squad beats Briar Cliff in national semifinals.

Pre-GPAC era: Concordia women’s basketball had never won a game at the national tournament – until Stephanie Schilke came along. The Bulldogs were one of the surprises of the 1997 national tournament when they defeated Taylor (Ind.), 83-78, and then upset top-seeded Shawnee State (Ohio), 82-71. The complete stunner was the victory over Shawnee State. It was a game Concordia controlled. It led by as many as 15 points in the opening half behind Schilke and Rachel Witzel. The upset pushed head coach Mark Lemke’s breakthrough squad into the national quarterfinals.

Complete details of women’s basketball top moments can be found HERE.

Cross Country

GPAC era: It probably hasn’t gotten the recognition it deserves. The 2004 Concordia women’s cross country team was incredibly dominant. This statement is backed by what head coach Kregg Einspahr’s squad did at the GPAC championships when Concordia runners placed first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth. The results were similar at the NAIA regional meet when Bulldogs held down five of the top six spots. In the national rankings, the Bulldogs garnered top-five placements in each of the final six polls, rising to No. 1 on Nov. 5. Behind All-Americans Molly Engel (GPAC and regional champion) and Jacquelym Dibbern, Concordia finished as the national runner up in a meet that took place in Louisville, Ky. It capped a five-year run during which Einspahr guided women’s cross country teams to four national runner-up finishes.

Pre-GPAC era: The cross country dynasty began with the hiring of Kregg Einspahr as head coach prior to the 1992 season. Three years later came the first Concordia women’s cross country conference title in school history (only the third combined for men and women). The Bulldogs’ share of the 1995 Nebraska-Iowa Athletic Conference title ranks as a significant moment that signaled the start of something special. Amy Luft (2nd) and Connie Howard (5th) placed in the top five for Einspahr’s trailblazing group. The women’s program went on a run in which it won five conference championships in an 11-year span.

Football

GPAC era: Ross Wurdeman’s signature moment sparks home playoff victory.

Pre-GPAC era: Arkie scores 19 touchdowns for undefeated ’31 team.

Complete details of football top moments can be found HERE.

Golf

GPAC era: On May 2, 2017, Amy Ahlers became the first individual conference champion in program history. Trailing by as many as eight strokes on the final day of the GPAC championships, Ahlers stormed back to take over the lead during the third round of a four-round championship event. She finished the conference championships with a score of 83-76-77-83–319. Named GPAC golfer of the year, Ahlers qualified for the national championships. A CoSIDA Academic All-American, she concluded her career with school records for 18-hole average in a career (81.89) and in a season (80.79).

Pre-GPAC era: Dr. Carl Everts spent more than three decades leading the Concordia golf programs as part of a long run as an administrator, teacher and coach. One of his finest moments as a coach came in 1981 when the men’s golf squad won the Nebraska Intercollegiate Conference title. The team’s top performers were seniors Mark Griesse and Al Hans, who helped the Bulldogs to four dual wins.

Men’s Soccer

GPAC era: After an up-and-down run through the regular season, the 2015 Bulldogs put it all together with an unforgettable postseason run. An improbable GPAC tournament title was crowned when Concordia upset 19th-ranked Hastings, 1-0, on its home field on Nov. 12. The lone goal came in the 66th minute via Tyler Jensen. National champions a year later, the Broncos were not accustomed to conceding any kinds of GPAC championships on their own turf. Head coach Jason Weides’ squad had an especially challenging road to traverse in order to secure the program’s first national tournament berth since the mid-1970s. It also had to go on the road to get past Northwestern in the quarterfinals and Midland in the semifinals. Behind goalkeeper Mark Horsburgh, Concordia did not surrender a single goal during the GPAC tournament.

Pre-GPAC era: The program did not clearly establish itself until Jack Kinworthy became the first stable coach for Concordia men’s soccer in 1974. Kinworthy would serve as head coach for 20 seasons, piling up 113 wins (school record). Based on record alone, Kinworthy’s best season was a 9-3-1 mark in 1976. A member of the Concordia Athletic Hall of Fame, the ’76 squad reached the NAIA national tournament. The Bulldogs scored 40 goals and allowed just 16 while following the lead of Dave Wolter, Barry Terrass and Kent Schlichtemeier. Wolter and Terrass earned Team MVP honors. Kinworthy helped lay the groundwork for the modern era of men’s soccer.

Women’s Soccer

GPAC era: In order to attain great heights in the regional soccer landscape, you often have to go through Hastings. The 2014 Concordia women’s soccer team will long be remembered as the group that came out of nowhere to challenge the Broncos for league supremacy. On Nov. 13, 2014, Jessica Skerston surfaced with an 80th-minute goal and goalkeeper Chrissy Lind and company held No. 20 Hastings scoreless, locking up a surprise GPAC tournament title. The victory proved that the Oct. 29 ‘upset’ of the Broncos, just a couple weeks earlier, was no fluke. In only his second year as head coach, Greg Henson had steered the program into the national tournament for the first time ever. First team All-GPAC center back Rachel Mussell was a rock for a team that went 16-3-3 overall and unbeaten (7-0-3) during conference play.

Pre-GPAC era: There’s not a lot to choose from for a program that began its first season of intercollegiate competition in 1996 … so why not go back to the program’s very first victory? After an 0-5 start in 1996, Concordia defeated Dana College, 4-1. It was a goal scoring outburst for a Bulldog team that finished the season with a grand total of eight goals. Things would improve rapidly. Concordia pushed its total to 44 goals in 1997, which resulted in a 10-10 record. A few short years later, Jennifer Davis arrived on campus. She remains the program record holder with 88 career goals.

Softball

GPAC era: A successful program, Concordia softball teams have won four GPAC championships (regular season and tournament included). However, the single greatest moment of the GPAC era, perhaps in program history, came from a team that fell just short of winning a conference title. You would be hard pressed to find a more dramatic, more tense moment than the one that presented itself on May 2, 2014, when combatants Concordia and Midland were both one win away from locking up a berth to the national tournament. In a tie game in the bottom of the eighth, senior Amber Topil drilled a two-run homer that gave the Bulldogs a 10-8 walk-off victory. Head coach Todd LaVelle’s squad had won a fourth-straight elimination game and rallied back from a 7-2 deficit against Midland. Concordia was off to the national tournament.

Pre-GPAC era: Two of the greatest individual seasons in program history came in 1998 when Stacey Miller (NIAC Player of the Year) and Mindy Evans (NIAC Pitcher of the Year) starred for head coach Tim Preuss’ conference champion squad. Miller batted an incredible .570 (73-128) and scored 50 runs as the catalyst for a potent offense. A standout with her bat and arm, Evans logged 227.1 innings, won 24 games and had a stellar ERA of 2.00. In terms of winning percentage, there has never been a better Concordia softball team than the ’98 group that went 33-10 (.767) overall and finished as the runner up at the Great Plains Regional tournament. The 1998 team was the first Bulldog softball team ever to achieve a top 25 national ranking.

Tennis

GPAC era: Both tennis programs remain in search of their first ever GPAC championships. However, the women came close three-straight years from 2007 to 2009. Those teams were all one win away from first place in the conference standings. Concordia had back-to-back GPAC women’s tennis coaches of the year in 2007 with Mark Lemke and 2008 with Amy Harms. From 2007 to 2011, the Bulldog women’s tennis program compiled a conference record of 33-8. In 2011, Harms’ squad made a run to the GPAC tournament championship match, defeating Morningside and Sioux Falls during postseason play. Concordia fell one win short of a national tournament berth when it was beaten in the title match by Nebraska Wesleyan.

Pre-GPAC era: The 1954 men’s squad is the only tennis team to be inducted into the Concordia Athletic Hall of Fame. The ’54 Bulldogs went 10-1 overall, won the Central Church College Conference championship and twice defeated Creighton.

Track & Field

GPAC era: It’s a tie. There’s no way to separate the national titles won by both the men’s and women’s programs. Neither the 2015 men’s team nor the 2016 women’s squad entered their outdoor national championship meets as the favorites to claim banners, but both surprised the competition with dominant groups of throwers. Amazingly, both teams had to sweat out the final race of the meet – the 4x400 meter relay. In the end, Zach Lurz led the men and Liz King guided the women to the first team national championships for any sport in Concordia history. A great deal of credit goes to Ed McLaughlin, who has helped build the best throwing program in the NAIA and one of the best in all of college athletics, even when considering NCAA Division I programs. Both championships were celebrated in Gulf Shores, Ala., where athletes tossed head coach Kregg Einspahr and other staff members into the steeplechase pit.

Pre-GPAC era: It was Kregg Einspahr who put Concordia track and field on the map. The program did not enjoy the stature it has now back in 1980 when Einspahr first won a national title, racing to first place in the two-mile run (9:01.64). Einspahr went on to win a total of six individual national championships as one of the finest athletes in school history. Einspahr was showered with honors and accolades and was even named by the Lincoln Journal Star as one of the state college athletes of the century. He’s a member of the NAIA and Concordia halls of fame. Before shifting to a coaching and teaching career, Einspahr competed at the Olympic trials.

Volleyball

GPAC era: There were no more significant wins during the 2015 national tournament campaign than the one that surprised many around the nation on Oct. 14. Head coach Scott Mattera’s squad put itself into the conference championship picture by stunning second-ranked and previously unbeaten Midland in Fremont. The 17th-ranked Bulldogs roared back from a two-sets-to-one deficit to claim one of the biggest wins in school history. Concordia limited the powerfully built Warriors to a .105 hitting percentage. The major road triumph boosted Concordia’s case for an at-large national tournament berth, which it eventually earned for the first time ever. The Bulldogs finished the year at 25-9 overall and with a national ranking of 22nd. Concordia’s first team All-GPAC selections were Annie Friesen, Jocelyn Garcia and Alayna Kavanaugh.

Pre-GPAC era: Nov. 2, 1981, marked a watershed moment for Concordia volleyball. Head coach Berniece Jones’ team took care of rival Hastings, 15-9, 15-9, 15-6, clinching the Nebraska Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title. It was the first conference championship ever for a program that also shared the league title in 2000 (first year of the GPAC). Under the direction of Jones, the Bulldogs soared to great heights in 1981, finishing the campaign with a 35-8 mark. The 35 wins were 19 more than the previous year’s squad posted. Led by stars Susan Hight and Karen Zobel (team co-MVPs), the Bulldogs went 9-1 in NIAC play. Concordia advanced to the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) Region 6, Division III Volleyball Tournament, where they took third place.

Wrestling

GPAC era: There have been some great team moments in recent years, but it’s difficult to top the first individual national championship in program history. Andrew Schulte seized a 141-pound national title in 2016, pinning Ottawa’s Tyler Hinton in the title bout. Schulte dominated throughout the season during a campaign that saw him set a new school standard for individual wins (40) in a year. He also garnered GPAC wrestler of the year accolades and led the program to conference dual and postseason titles. Schulte ended his career as a Bulldog by winning his final 26 matches. A native of Corona, Calif., Schulte also earned All-America honors in 2015. He was a key piece in the rise of Concordia wrestling under former head coach Dana Vote.

Pre-GPAC era: Wrestling at Concordia was revitalized in 2009 after a hiatus of 31 years. In other words, the pre-GPAC era of the program dated from 1961 to 1978. During that time, the Bulldogs enjoyed several successful seasons and were even coached by Jim Wacker (future head football coach at TCU) for five years. The 1969-70 squad completed a run of back-to-back Nebraska Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles. Tim Ebendick went 20-6, recorded 11 pins and was named the NIAC wrestler of the year as a senior for the 1970 team that received induction into the Concordia Athletic Hall of Fame. That squad went 10-3 overall in dual meets.