The Dordt Defender volleyball team will play in the quarterfinal round of the NAIA National Championship on Thursday, April 29 in Sioux City, Iowa. Dordt draws Concordia as their opponent at 5:00 pm.
The Concordia Bulldogs are 18-4 this season and finished the GPAC year with a 12-3 mark. Concordia’s losses in league play are to Northwestern, Jamestown and Dakota Wesleyan and all happened from October 10-17. The Bulldogs also lost to Northwestern GPAC semifinal round.
Camryn Opfer leads the Bulldog attack with 2.89 kills per set and Kara Stark is good for 2.83 kills per outing. Gabi Nordaker is at 2.77 in the balanced attack and Arleigh Costello and Kalee Wiltfong average 2.38 and 2.22 kills per outing. Tara Callahan runs the offense and averages 11.22 assists per set. Nordaker is the leading blocker with a 1.22 average and Marissa Hoerman tops the team with 4.9 digs per set and she has 30 ace serves—sharing team honors with Tristin Mason in that category.
Concordia has a 13.78-10.9 kills per set team advantage and they average 2.16 blocks per set while surrendering 2.0. The Bulldogs also have a 128-53 aces advantage this season.
The Defenders are 17-6 overall and 11-5 in the league and won eight straight matches spanning the end of the 2020 portion of the schedule and the start of the 2021 semester.
Dordt is averaging 13.18 kills per set with a .241 kill efficiency and has a 91-68 ace serves edge. The Defenders also record 2.74 points per set on blocks while allowing 12.03 kills per set with 1.47 blocks against per outing.
Jessi De Jager is averaging 2.68 kills per set and Brenna Krommendyk’s average is 2.47. Krommendyk has a .389 kill efficiency and De Jager is at .294. Krommendyk’s block average is 1.29 per outing while Alli Timmermans lifted her kill average to 2.54 as well and has a .359 kill efficiency. Corrina Timmermans is averaging 2.37 kills per set in a very balanced Dordt attack.
Hannah Connelly tops the Defenders with a 5.04 digs per set average and Corrina Timmermans is at 2.24 digs. Megan Raszler puts up 6.89 assists per set and Corina Beimers is averaging 4.67. Corrina Timmermans has 31 of Dordt’s 91 ace serves this season.
Both teams went 2-0 in pool play and had to pull off significant upsets to get to this point.
Dordt went five sets in both of its matches and had to do it in come from behind fashion. Dordt trailed Bellevue on Tuesday 2-1 and came back to win sets four and five 25-14 and 15-11. Allison Timmermans had 16 kills and Corrina Timmermans 14. Megan Raszler had 29 assists and Corina Beimers 20 while Hannah Connelly got to 30 digs.
On Wednesday the Defenders got behind Park 2-0 by scores of 26-24 ad 25-13 before rallying from an 18-12 deficit to win set three 26-24. Dordt controlled much of set four and won 25-22 and then held on to win set five 15-12. Alli Timmermans had 16 to pace Dordt and Corrina Timmermans had 15 while Brenna Krommendyk put down 11 and Jessi DeJager nine. Raszler put up 32 assists and Beimers had 22 while Connelly recorded 22 digs and Erica Bousema had 15.
Concordia beat Lindsey Wilson on Tuesday 23-25, 26-24, 28-26, 25-27, 15-10. Gabi Nordaker had 25 kills and Kara Stark 15 while Camryn Opfer had 14 kills. Callahan lofted 71 assists and Hoerman had 35 digs. The Bulldogs followed up that win with a 3-1 win over Marian on Wednesday. Opfer and Stark had 19 and 14 kills and Callahan had 49 assists with Hoerman getting to 19 digs.
Concordia beat Dordt 3-0 by scores of 25-20, 25-17, 25-21 on October 2. Nordaker had 11 kills and Callahan 33 assists in the win. Corrina Timmermans, Karsyn Winterfeld, Brenna Krommendyk and Allison Timmermans all had six kills in the loss.
Concordia has won back to matches in the series with Dordt’s last win coming in 2018 in the GPAC Tournament.
