NAIA Women’s Volleyball Notebook No. 4
At Concordia University, Nebraska, the Bulldogs are coming off their deepest NAIA National Championship run in program history. Following the surge to the national semifinals, Concordia debuted a new-look varsity roster this August, one without 10 student-athletes who appeared on the 2025 national stage. Gone are All-Americans Ashley Keck and Ella Waters and 87.5 percent of the team’s kills from last season.
In countering the graduation of a large and impactful senior class, Head Coach Ben Boldt and Associate Head Coach Angie Boldt doubled down on their process-oriented approach. Since their arrival in December 2017, the Boldts have preached love, trust, hard work and sacrifice as tenets of Concordia volleyball.
Said Ben Boldt prior to the start of the ‘26 season, “It's always been process. Always been process. Even last year when we made it to the semifinals, it was with process. We're really focusing less on what the results are. We're about putting in the work and coming back to our core values.”
In other words, the names and faces may change, but the Bulldogs are determined to stay true to who they aspire to be and to the winning culture established by seven straight national tournament teams from 2019 through the present. In building an elite program, the Boldts have found the right fits in recruiting while mostly mining the volleyball-crazed state of Nebraska. The list of Nebraska-bred all-time greats coached by the Boldts includes the likes of All-Americans Bree Burtwistle (Stanton), Ashley Keck (Kearney), Gabi Nordaker (Omaha) and Camryn Opfer (Seward).
Keck is the latest in the line of stars to graduate and move on. She leaves behind one of the most youthful rosters the Boldts have presided over during their time in Seward. As Ben Boldt stated, “Every season has a different personality. Every season, nothing's going to be the same.”
When Concordia took the court for the first time in 2026, it did so with a freshman setter, alongside two sophomores (one being the 2025 GPAC Freshman of the Year), a junior who had never played varsity before and a junior who made an offseason switch from defensive specialist to outside hitter. The other starters were a senior who has persevered through injury and a junior service specialist. Despite all that change, the Bulldogs ranked top five nationally in kills per set (13.52) through their first eight matches.
Lincoln East High School product Shandy Fa’ali’i is the aforementioned player who transitioned to outside hitter. She maximizes her 5-foot-8 frame with supreme athleticism. Fa’ali’i tops the team with 112 kills on 323 attempts. While she’s certainly the go-to attacker, five other players on the roster possess at least 34 kills on the season.
“I’ve been pretty encouraged by our balance,” Ben Boldt said. “I think we’re a hard team to defend because we have a lot of people who can get kills. We’re one of the top teams in the country at killing the ball. Our blocking needs to get better. We still have a lot of service errors, but our mentality is a good thing. We just have to clean that up a little bit.”
In order to uphold the program’s elite stature, new faces were going to have to emerge this season. On the right side, Danica Martin has proven capable of making major contributions. On the first day of the Siouxland Invite (Aug. 21), Martin produced 22 kills on 30 attempts. A junior from Mayer, Minn., Martin is one of the many Bulldogs taking on increased roles.
Said Martin, “A lot of people that started last year obviously went off to do their other stuff, but we've had a lot of people who are ready to step up and play their game. Our team chemistry makes it such an easy transition. There are so many people who didn't play varsity last year, and we're just really meshing as a team and doing really good things. So, I'm excited.”
Concordia believes it has an overall more athletic roster than it has showcased in recent seasons. A freshman from Minden, Neb., 5-foot-10 Myla Emery has star potential at setter. Boldt has also put trust in another freshman in Samantha Kimbell, who has delivered 48 kills from the outside. A sophomore capable of playing in the middle or on the pins, Makenna Starkey is already the track and field program’s record holder in the high jump. Senior Maddie Paulsen and Wayne State College transfer Bella Hedke are additional key pieces in the front row.
At setter, Emery and sophomore Ella Brueggemann have shared on-court duties. Said Boldt of Emery, “I don't think that she plays like a freshman. I think that she's got a very high volleyball IQ. She's like another coach out there, just in terms of how she thinks about the game.”
In the back row, Emma Brueggemann (twin sister of Ella) is a rock. She’s made continued strides after earning conference freshman of the year honors. Of course, passing and serving are the basic fundamentals that the Boldts drill into their team on a daily basis. In service, Concordia has been ultra-aggressive (2.72 aces per set) while led by 16 aces from freshman Kyla Griess. In the early going, the Bulldogs are still ironing out their deficiencies while trying to eliminate errors. “Focused aggression” is what the Boldts want to see moving forward.
Thus far, Concordia has tested itself by playing seven of its first eight matches against 2025 national qualifying teams (6-2 overall record). At the Power Quad hosted by the Bulldogs on Aug. 29, Concordia went head-to-head with three-time defending national champion Indiana Wesleyan. It was a battle between teams that mirrored each other in that both are attempting to reload after graduating multiple All-Americans. Ultimately, the Wildcats won it in a five-set classic, taking the fifth, 17-15.
As Boldt said afterwards, “We had some opportunities where we made some uncharacteristic errors, but we’re going to have those types of growing pains. We need to continue to learn from them, continue to keep growing and keep getting better.”
Considering the roster overhaul, Concordia did not expect to be a finished product this early in the season. As Boldt says, “Obviously, we want to be playing our best volleyball at the end of the year.”