FOREST CITY, Iowa – The second set proved to be a war on Friday (Oct. 4) as the Concordia University Volleyball team played Waldorf for the first time since the Warriors officially joined the GPAC this past summer. The fourth-ranked Bulldogs ultimately won out in Forest City, Iowa, behind a starring performance in the middle from Gabi Nordaker. Concordia .282 for the night while winning its third GPAC road match this season, 25-17, 33-31, 25-13.
This was the first outing for Head Coach Ben Boldt’s squad since its five-set showdown last weekend with top-ranked Northwestern. The Bulldogs have moved to 13-2 overall (6-1 GPAC).
“We came out really focused and we executed really well,” Boldt said. “I think Gabi had seven kills and zero errors in the first set. She was on fire to start – we were really clicking with our offense. We lost a little bit of the close-out mentality in the second set. We were up and Waldorf kept fighting. They didn’t give the match away. We had to earn everything that we were doing. It was fun to see us finish that set. I thought we stayed gritty through that. In the third set, we called a timeout and talked about having a finishing mentality. We really flipped the script mentally and were really aggressive in the third set.”
In that second set, Concordia allowed a 19-12 lead to slip away, setting the stage for the highest-tension moments of the evening. Waldorf had four different set-point opportunities throughout that marathon stretch. Eventually, the Bulldogs found their finishing touch as a 31-31 stalemate was broken up by an Ella Waters kill and a Warrior attack error. Concordia truly did earn the majority of its points in that set as 24 of them came on kills.
The first and third sets were a different story. The Bulldogs hit .457 in the opening set and .286 in the third while taking care of business. Nordaker set the tone early by striking for kills on each of the match’s first three points. Her first five attacks resulted in kills and she finished the night hitting .611 with 13 kills to go along with six blocks. Nordaker was equaled in the kill department by two teammates: Waters and Keck. Waters (.458 hitting percentage) needed only 24 attempts to rack up her 13 kills.
Additionally, Addie Kirkegaard added 10 kills for the victors, who outhit the Warriors, .282 to .090. Setters Lily Psencik and Savannah Shelburne supplied 22 assists apiece while Shandy Fa’ali’i came through with both of the team’s aces. In the back row, Keck and Becca Gebhardt shared a match high 13 digs while Kirkegaard cleaned up in the front row with six blocks to equal Nordaker.
Waldorf (8-8, 2-5 GPAC) was coming off a four-set road win over College of Saint Mary. The Warriors were paced by the nine kills from Kaylin Koch. Waldorf played Concordia as recently as 2019 when it appeared at the Bulldog Bash and fell in straight sets at the hands of the Bulldogs.
It was an overall solid performance on Friday for Concordia. Said Boldt, “Ella had a really good match. She hit over .400. We had three people with 13 kills and had another balanced attack. That was good … We took it home and finished the match strong. I’m really proud of the effort.”
The weekend road trip will continue on Saturday when the Bulldogs will be in Mitchell, S.D., to take on Dakota Wesleyan (8-10, 3-4 GPAC). First serve of the varsity match is set for 3 p.m. CT. Concordia won both of last season’s meeting with the Tigers in straight sets. In Friday night’s action, DWU was beaten at home by No. 18 Midland in four sets.