SEWARD, Neb. – After spending the first week of the regular season at home, the Concordia University Men’s Soccer team will venture on the road for both of this week’s outings. The Bulldogs will play Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, on Wednesday night before traveling to Salina, Kan., to take on Kansas Wesleyan University on Saturday. Head Coach Jason Weides’ squad began the 2021 campaign last week with nonconference wins over Tabor College (Kan.) and York College.
This Week
Wednesday, Sept. 1 at Grand View (1-0-1), 7 p.m.
--Live Webcast | Live Stats | Online Tickets
Saturday, Sept. 4 at Kansas Wesleyan (0-1), 7:30 p.m.
--Live Webcast | Live Stats | Online Tickets
Note: Grand View plays its home games at Crownie Soccer Complex in Des Moines while Kansas Wesleyan plays its home games at Graves Family Sports Complex in Salina. Both venues currently have no attendance limits.
In the opening week of the season, Concordia toppled York, 4-2, and Tabor, 4-0. The Bulldogs have featured six different goal scorers through the first two games: Garrett Perry (two), Isaiah Shaddick (two), Max Bisinger (one), Martin Herrera (one), Carlos Orquiz (one) and Ryan Wokutch (one). Shaddick and Perry are the team’s leading returning goal scorers from last season having posted six and five goals, respectively, during the 2020-21 campaign. As a team, Concordia outscored its opponents by a combined total of 41-23 last season.
This marks year 14 for Weides as head coach. He has established the program as a consistent winner. The Bulldogs own an active streak of 10 seasons in a row with at least 10 wins. Since that stretch began, Concordia owns a combined record of 112-61-22. In terms of overall victories, the most successful season in program history came in 2017 when the Bulldogs went 16-3-1 overall (GPAC runner up in the regular season and postseason). Two years earlier, Concordia upset its way to the first GPAC tournament title in program history.
The Bulldogs will meet up with Grand View for the first time since 2012 when the two sides played each other in Hastings, Neb. The result was a 2-1 victory for Concordia over a Viking squad that was ranked 20th in the NAIA at the time. Kansas Wesleyan has been a much more familiar foe. The Bulldogs and Coyotes will go head-to-head for the fifth-straight season. Concordia has gotten the upper hand in three of the past four matchups, including last season’s 4-0 decision that took place in Seward.
Grand View owns a record of 1-0-1 with a draw against eighth-ranked Bellevue University and a 5-0 win over Waldorf University (Iowa) to its credit. The Vikings went 7-6-1 last season while under the direction of longtime Head Coach Blair Reid, who has led the program to 12 national tournaments in 36 seasons. Kansas Wesleyan dropped its opener, 6-1, on Aug. 24, at the hands of the University of Science & Arts (Okla.). The Coyotes went 4-8-2 last season. KWU reached the national tournament as recently as 2018.
Following this week’s action, the Bulldogs will look forward to hosting Benedictine College (Kan.) on Wednesday, Sept. 8. Concordia will play six total nonconference games prior to the start of GPAC play.