SEWARD, Neb. – Vintage Concordia University Volleyball treated the Friedrich Arena crowd to a swift moving GPAC semifinal clash with ninth-ranked Jamestown on Wednesday (Nov. 8) night. The Bulldogs put together one of their better performances of the season while hitting an eye-popping .330 against a foe that ranks amongst the nation’s best defensively. Ashley Keck and company carved up the Jimmies and sent them packing, 25-16, 25-18, 25-22, in the GPAC semifinals.
Head Coach Ben Boldt has guided the program back to the GPAC tournament championship match for the third-straight year. Concordia will carry a 23-2 overall record up to Orange City, Iowa, on Saturday.
“This was a complete performance,” Boldt said. “Offensively, we had great flow. Defensively, there were a couple of things we could have done better, but I thought we were very gritty and fought through a lot of stuff tonight. I’m really proud of the team. The numbers across the board are awesome. We hit .330, which is really awesome against a team of Jamestown’s caliber.”
Roughly a month earlier, the Bulldogs hosted Jamestown in a pivotal regular season match. The Jimmies landed the first blow by taking the opening set in that matchup. This time around, Concordia seized control early in the evening. A tight 11-10 Bulldog advantage ballooned to 18-11 with Keck pulverizing a kill to highlight the run. Gabi Nordaker did the honors of finishing off the first (block) and second (kill) sets while the Jimmies struggled to keep up. The visitors hit just .029 and .140 over the first and second sets, respectively.
Jamestown (23-9) threatened to push the match to a fourth set as it knotted the third, 22-22. Over the final three points, Camryn Opfer and Keck struck for a kill apiece. Keck smashed match point into oblivion and sent the ‘white out’ student section into a frenzy. Ben Boldt even rushed over to celebrate along with them as Keck rang the victory bell. Instead of waving the orange flags, Jamestown left waving the white flag.
Said Boldt, “Keck took a rip there at the end. If there’s anything I’ve learned in my time as a coach, it’s that you don’t tip on game point. You go for it – and she did.
“Jamestown’s a really good team. They’re well-coached. They can hit edges of the court, they can hit it hard and they can hit it off speed. It forces you to cover a lot of ground defensively.”
The Kearney native Keck led all players with 14 kills on the strength of a .364 hitting percentage. Setter Bree Burtwistle worked the attack like a symphony as Nordaker hit .467 (eight kills), Maddie Paulsen hit .455 (five kills) and Carly Rodaway hit .333 (nine kills). Additionally, Opfer added seven kills, 12 digs and four blocks. Paulsen also had a hand in four stuffs while Burtwistle piled up 39 assists and Becca Gebhardt topped the team with 13 digs. Concordia held advantages of 44-38 in kills, 6-3 in blocks and 45-41 in digs.
“This week, we’ve been working on some challenge games in practice a lot,” Keck said. “We’ve worked on finding those high hands and finding those open shots, and I really think that helped us tonight. Last time, they took the first set. I think it was really nice to sweep them this time. We were ready. We’re ready for the championship. It’s a really good feeling to be back in it.”
On the other side, Aleah Zieske put away a Jimmie high 13 kills. Star libero Ellie Holen collected 17 digs. Jamestown (23-9) reached the GPAC semifinals by defeating Morningside in the quarterfinals. The defending national champion Jimmies are a lock for an at-large berth to the national tournament.
The top seed in the bracket, Northwestern (25-2) defeated fourth-seeded Midland in four sets in the other semifinal on Wednesday. As a result, the Bulldogs will be headed to Orange City for the championship on Saturday. First serve is set for 7:30 p.m. CT from the Bultman Center. Concordia will vie for the program’s first ever GPAC tournament title. Both the Bulldogs and Red Raiders have already qualified for nationals with automatic bids.
| #RTB + a Ben Boldt celebration with the student section. Soak it in! pic.twitter.com/lWKsDMYZQa
— Concordia Bulldogs (@cunebulldogs) November 9, 2023