She had just finished tallying 27 kills and 29 digs on the national tournament stage when a fan from the opposing side yelled out to Ashley Keck. “Can you dunk a basketball?” She smiled and answered that she could not, which came as a bit of a surprise considering how superhuman she looked over the previous couple of hours. There was little question about who the best player on the floor had been during Concordia’s five-set NAIA Championship Pool Play win over Dakota Wesleyan.
At various times in 2025, Keck showed she could put the Bulldogs on her back and will the team to victory. Head Coach Ben Boldt emphasizes balance within the team, but sometimes you just have to get the ball to Keck, a two-time NAIA First Team All-American who grew exponentially throughout her career in ways that were measured only partially by the statistics.
As Boldt said prior to the ’25 season, “Coming into this year, having expectations on you and also being able to handle that, shoulder it and keep a good attitude through it – it can be a lot. I think she’s really grown in that area.”
During Keck’s sophomore year, coaches Ben and Angie Boldt challenged her with one simple directive: smile more. In other words, they were telling Keck to harness her fiery competitiveness, to be aware of how her body language might affect her teammates and to allow her joy for the sport of volleyball to shine through, win or lose, good game or bad game. Already a fine player (who was named GPAC Freshman of the Year in 2022), Keck absorbed the feedback she received and rose to a level of stardom that places her in the conversation with the program’s all-time greats.
The Kearney, Neb., native became the first player in program history to earn NAIA First Team All-America awards in back-to-back years and is one of just five Bulldogs to ever reach 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs for a career. Furthermore, she was a two-time GPAC Attacker of the Year, a two-time NAIA National Championship All-Tournament selection and an NAIA First Team Academic All-American. Over the course of her career, Keck led Concordia to its best ever four-year winning percentage (105-18; .854) and to its first ever national semifinal appearance.
On a Tuesday in the middle of January, Keck attempts to make sense of it, but it’s still quite fresh – all of these accolades and all of this recognition. One might think that Ashley grew up in a volleyball-crazed family that pushed her to constantly drill on the fundamentals. No, this was the life she chose, with the support of a loving family.
As Ashley says, “For as long as I can remember, I just loved the game. I don’t think there was one specific person (who influenced me in the sport). Kearney Catholic in general had a huge influence on me. I’m very grateful for that experience. My parents had my back through it all. They always helped me. I’ve just been really competitive from a young age. I think that’s taken me a long way.”
As a youngster, Ashley did the things that all children should. Try everything. In her hometown of Kearney, she played basketball, soccer, softball and volleyball, ran track and even shot BB guns with future Bulldog teammate Ashlyn Wischmeier at the local YMCA. Back then, Ashley played on club teams with another future Concordia star and Kearney native, Kierstynn Garner. Who knew the success they would both carve out? Incredible, indeed.
It was during her time as a prep at Kearney Catholic High School that the immediate path ahead came into focus. Keck credits her high school volleyball experience, while playing for Coach Kris Conner, with opening her eyes to just how much she loved the game. As it turned out, she was quite good at it. She was named Class C-1 First Team All-State in 2020 and 2021 and was tabbed by the Lincoln Journal Star as a Third Team Super State honoree in 2021.
Quite frankly, Keck probably should have received more recruiting attention than she did, but she had not played club volleyball as a junior or senior (in part because the infrastructure was lacking in Kearney at the time). Ashley says that Ben and Angie were the first college coaches to reach out to her and that only one other school made contact in the recruiting process.
That was just fine with Keck, who explained her reasons for choosing Concordia, “Definitely the closeness of Concordia. It’s a little over an hour-and-a-half to get here. The Christian, faith-based part was huge for me. That’s really big in my life. Coming to a school that also valued that was really important. Ben and Angie reached out to me, and they showed how much they care about their recruits. They want their recruits to be involved in things. I got a Christmas card. They really put in a lot of effort for their recruits. It just felt like home here.”
Keck was welcomed into a winning program coming off a national quarterfinal appearance in 2021. The Boldts quickly figured out they had someone who was ready to contribute immediately. In her first collegiate match, which took place in Oregon in August of 2022, Ashley produced 12 kills on 36 swings. In some ways, Keck could hide in the background thanks to the presence of more experienced attackers in Camryn Opfer, Gabi Nordaker, Carly Rodaway and others. It wouldn’t be that way for long.
From the outside looking in, Ashley seemed to adjust to college volleyball seamlessly. She totaled 273 kills and hit .203 as the GPAC’s top freshman in 2022. That was only a start for Keck, who would transform herself from a three-rotation player to a six-rotation player much too valuable to ever leave the court. At 5-foot-11, quick and athletic, Keck possessed every skill necessary for any play in volleyball. She could pass, she could block, she could serve and she most certainly could attack.
She didn’t accumulate 1,460 kills by simply scalding the ball as hard as she possibly could. Like an ace pitcher in baseball, Ashley mixed speeds, worked in plenty of curveballs and expertly placed the ball in places the opposition couldn’t reach. Her array of shots kept the opposition off balance.
“The fun thing about Ashley is that she’s not 6-4,” Ben Boldt said. “She’s probably 5-10 and she can hit the ball with power and can hit different shots. I don’t think there was a time when she had two of the same kills in a row. She uses the whole court. She uses off-speed and back row attacks. She really expanded her game throughout her time here. Even more than that, you can’t do what she does without having great support around her. We could always count on Ashley.”
Counting on Ashley proved fruitful down the stretch of the 2025 season. When she got going, balance was sometimes thrown out the window. Keck produced back-to-back 22-kill performances in the GPAC tournament in matchups with Morningside and Midland and later yielded the aforementioned 27-kill effort versus Dakota Wesleyan at the national tournament. With a spot in the semifinals on the line, Keck rose to the occasion with 24 kills and 29 digs to help the Bulldogs prevail in five sets over sixth-ranked Providence (Mont.).
The smiles were wide and plentiful throughout the historic run. Keck’s eyes welled up with tears – happy tears - after the close call with DWU. As she said then in a postgame interview, “You can probably tell I’m emotional right now.” In the lasting image from that particular contest, Keck held up her arms while being engulfed by her teammates in celebration of match point.
Three days later, Keck took a leading role in dowsing Ben Boldt with water in a locker room celebration of the team’s advancement to the national semifinals. In the moments in between, Keck smiled, even after her own attack errors. It was her way of telling her teammates that everything was all right. “Win or lose, we’re going to have that joy. No one’s going to take that away from us,” Keck said following the quarterfinal win over Providence. She felt that same joy, even in the aftermath of the season ending defeat at the hands of rival Northwestern.
That 2025 national tournament experience at the Tyson Events Center in Sioux City, Iowa, won’t soon be forgotten. Said Keck, “That will forever stick in all of our memories. That was a beautiful moment. I’ve never won a state championship in high school volleyball or in track or basketball. I’ve never had the satisfaction of winning something super big, so that’s something I’ll hold for the rest of my life. That’s the biggest stage that I’ve experienced.”
It’s those moments with her teammates that Keck fought so tenaciously to achieve. This path she chose wasn’t about the kills, the digs or the All-America awards. The honors are nice in that they show “that people on the outside see the hard work that you put into it,” as Keck stated.
She rose to the challenge, and then some. Said Ben Boldt, “It was awesome to see the evolution of her leadership. She would throw away every single individual award she’s ever gotten to make sure that the team is okay. She’s had that mindset, especially in her junior and senior years when she really stepped into a leadership role.”
Now in her final college semester, Ashley is coming to grips with the end of this chapter of her life. The daughter of Richard Keck and Kristie Toben, Ashley will graduate this May with a degree in Business Administration (minor in marketing). She continues to fulfill her internship with the Union Pacific Railroad (Omaha headquarters), which might soon lead to a full-time position. Notably, she represents the sixth generation of her family, dating back to her great, great, great grandfather, to work for the railroad in some capacity. For the record, Ashley works in logistics while her dad continues to serve as a signal maintainer.
However it shakes out, Ashley is better off because of the ups (many of them) and downs (not too many) lived out in her Concordia journey. She knows she can face challenges and overcome them. When No. 6 wore Bulldog Blue, she appeared capable of anything, so why wouldn’t someone expect that she could dunk?!
Actually, Keck did dunk on Concordia’s opponents like no one else in school history – while playing with her best friends – and with a smile on her face.
When asked for final thoughts, Ashley put a few of them together better than most would. Said Ashley, “I feel like everyone says this, but I’ll forever cherish the relationships that we build. We joke that Ben and Angie recruit our best friends for a lifetime. What’s so cool about playing a sport with those best friends you create at Concordia Volleyball is that you don’t just go through the highs together. You went through lows, mental battles and struggles. That’s something a lot of people don’t experience in a normal college career that I’ll forever cherish and be grateful for.”