SEWARD, Neb. – Newly minted as the No. 4 team in the NAIA, Concordia University Volleyball brushed off a strong push from visiting McPherson College (Kan.) in the 2023 season opener held on Saturday (Aug. 19) inside Friedrich Arena. Separate runs of 5-0 and 6-0 in the fourth set allowed the host Bulldogs to stave off the upset bid and take it, 25-12, 25-22, 20-25, 25-20, over the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference foe. Both Camryn Opfer (15) and Kya Scott (10) reached double figures in kills for the victors.
Head Coach Ben Boldt unveiled a ’23 squad that looks quite a bit like the ’22 team. Six returning All-GPAC players were among the 13 Bulldogs who saw action on Saturday.
“We need to clean up our seams a little bit on defense and we need to get our setter-hitter connection just a little bit better,” Boldt said. “And I think our blocking needs to be better. I was happy about us taking a hit, being able to refocus and come back. McPherson is a really good, scrappy team. It was tough to get a ball down on them. There were a lot of balls we were hitting that would be kills a lot of times, but they dug them up. That can be frustrating, and I just thought that we stayed with it mentally. I was proud about that.”
After banking the first two sets, Concordia opened up a 9-5 lead in the third and appeared on its way to a snappy season opener. That’s when the visitors showed some mettle in putting together a 10-1 surge that Boldt’s crew wouldn’t recover from until the next set. McPherson scrapped its way back with the help of Moriah Delgado’s 23 digs in the back row and with double-digit kill outings from Zoe Fernandez (11) and Bridget McHugh (10). Leading 13-10 in the fourth set, McPherson made a serious threat at forcing a fifth.
One of the more significant plays of the day followed as Sara Huss delivered a block that fired up the troops. The 5-foot-7 Scott took it from there in going kill-kill-block in consecutive fashion. In doing so, the Broken Bow, Neb., native took advantage of the most extended action she’s seen at the varsity level. Concordia was back in control and mounted a 22-17 advantage in the fourth set. Following the match, Boldt referred to Scott as “fearless.”
Said Scott of the opportunity, “It was amazing. I love this team. The team culture is great. Everyone out there – they’re your best friends. I had so much fun. We just knew we had to put that gas pedal down, forget that last (third) set and get the next set.”
There will be better days for the Concordia attack, which was held to a .175 percentage. Returning Honorable Mention All-American setter Bree Burtwistle amassed 38 assists in addition to 10 digs. Opfer, who has joined Burtwistle for a fifth year of college volleyball, notched nine digs and two blocks to go along with her match high 15 kills. Next in line in the kill department were Gabi Nordaker (eight), Maddie Paulsen (seven) and Carly Rodaway (five). In addition, Rebecca Gebhardt collected 15 digs and Lexie Kreizel dropped in three aces.
McPherson visited Friedrich Arena for the second August in a row. It hit .102 while giving Concordia fits. McPherson had the edge in digs, 68-65, and nearly equaled the powerful home Bulldogs in kills (46-45) while blocks favored Concordia, 9-6. There were a combined 18 service errors on the day.
“Mostly just the mentality,” said Boldt of his positive takeaways. “We were rolling there, we were rolling, and there was a service error that happened in the third set. From that point it snowballed a little bit. After that point, we got back to playing free. We talk about refocusing a lot with our team. Sometimes your mind is going to wonder on some things, but how quickly you get back to refocusing is a big key for championship teams. We were able to do that – hopefully we can get back to it a little bit quicker.”
Action will continue from Friedrich Arena next weekend (Aug. 25-26) when Concordia will host the Bulldog Bash. The schedule for the two-day event is included below.
2023 Bulldog Bash – Friedrich Arena
Friday, Aug. 25
5 p.m. – Northwestern vs. MidAmerica Nazarene
7:30 p.m. – Concordia vs. Langston
Saturday, Aug. 26
11 a.m. – MidAmerica Nazarene vs. Langston
1:30 p.m. – Northwestern vs. Langston
4 p.m. – Concordia vs. MidAmerica Nazarene