Monthly Archive for August, 2007

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Published on August 30, 2007 in Uncategorized. Closed

Numerous new updates are up on our website. Also, have added some audio interviews with Coach Van Dyke and Coach Elgersma. Hope to do this on a semi-regular basis with the various coaches. We’ll see how well our schedules mesh. By the way, you need Windows Media Player to play the files. There is also a video highlight reel from the football scrimmage. Thanks to Micah Stanley for putting that together.

One more thing…a correction to my previous blog from early today. Minnesota Crookston has played two games this year in women’s soccer, it won’t be the season opener as I noted this morning.

A little bit of this a little bit of that

Published on August 30, 2007 in Uncategorized. Closed

Busy weekend coming up for the Dordt teams. Preview are either up on the www.dordt.edu/athletics website or will be later today so I’ll just give you some of the high points.

The cross country teams host their annual early event. This year it will be at Sandy Hollow on Friday afternoon. Course is a little shorter than the teams will normally run during the year. Last year Jen Kempers won the women’s race and Joel De Haan came in second for the men. Starts at 4:00.

The women’s soccer team travels to Crookston, Minnesota for games on Friday and Saturday. Play Minnesota-Crookston on Friday and Presentation on Saturday. Presentation and Crookston will then play each other on Sunday. Dordt gets both teams for their season opener. Defenders will be relatively young.

Men play a Bellevue team that is usually pretty good on Friday night in Bellevue, Nebraska. Bellevue was scheduled to play this past week on Tuesday but couldn’t get their match in with Hastings due to stormy weather.

Volleyball worked hard for a win on Tuesday night when they beat the College of Saint Mary Flames in Omaha. Wins at the Lied Center have been hard to come by. The team that went to Omaha was so young on Friday that I don’t realize what they accomplished. That’s ok. They’ll have their work cut out for them again this weekend when they travel to Grand Rapids, Michigan for four matches at a classic hosted by Cornerstone. 4-1 right now with the GPAC schedule opening on Tuesday of next week at Dakota Wesleyan.

I guess I’m getting the answer to my questions about Kristin De Ronde’s knee injury recovery. It’s going pretty well. 18 kills against CSM the other night. By the way, the win at CSM was just Dordt’s second in ten tries at the Flames’ home court. Last time was two years ago when Dordt won 3-0.

Football is here. Home game on Monday, Labor Day. Tailgate party before. Come and check it out. Kickoff is at 6:00 and we’ll have the game on KDCR 88.5 FM and also live on the world wide web. I think everyone involved wants to play that first game and see what they are working with and against.

Till later this weekend………..

Saturday, August 25

Published on August 25, 2007 in Uncategorized. Closed

The first athletic weekend of the 2006-2007 school year is behind us.

The Defender men’s soccer team had a good weekend, winning a pair of one goal games. Showed some grit on Saturday coming back from a 2-0 deficit at halftime to beat Waldorf when Ryan Coon got his first goal of the season in the second overtime. Coon, Dan Koolhaas and Craig Humphreys were named to the all-Classic team at Northwestern’s tournament.

The volleyball team went 3-1 over the weekend, stumbling to Georgetown, a nationally ranked team on Friday night. Coach VB used a lot of lineups through out the weekend. Capped it with a five game win Saturday afternoon over Peru State. Kristin De Ronde had a nice weekend and Autumn Vande Kamp had a big match against Peru State with 21 kills. Kendra Potgeter was solid the entire weekend the way the stats show and Emily Van Voorst made it all run at the setters spot.

Football had a scrimmage open to the public. Coach Heavner’s squad played in front of over 200 supporters on a perfect day to sit outside. Jamin Ver Velde took some pictures, they’re at http://www.dordt.edu/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=5735

Have a great rest of your weekend!

Coaches’ Luncheon

Published on August 24, 2007 in Uncategorized. Closed

Had about 100 people at the coaches’ luncheon in the West Commons on Thursday afternoon. Hats off to Wes Fopma for organizing the event. Hopefully everyone had a good time. Access audio and pictures of the event at http://www.dordt.edu/cgi-bin/news/get_news.pl?id=2480

Off and running today with volleyball and soccer….more of the same tomorrow. Also am looking forward to the football scrimmage tomorrow. If the weather holds we’ll be at the Open Space Park at 11:30.

Meet the team bios are up for the volleyball team at http://www.dordt.edu/athletics/volleyball/meet_the_team.shtml

Jeff Zomer, baseball coach, gave me his schedule for September. Tournament at Northwestern on September 8 at 12:30 and 5:30. Scrimmage Morningside at Lewis and Clark Park at 3:30 and scrimmage Northwestern on September 21 at 5:00. The team also typically closes out September with an intra-squad World Series.

Assistant coaches list for football includes:

Stan Altemeier—Served as an assistant coach at Western Christian High School (Iowa) the last three years. A 1999 graduate of B-G-M (Brooklyn-Gurnsey-Malcom) in East Central Iowa. Upon graduation Altemeier attended Cornell (Iowa) where he was a linebacker and fullback. He also played one season of football at Upper Iowa where he played tight end.

Tim Carpenter—A 1997 graduate of the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska where he was a tight end on the 1996 National Championship team and earned four letters. Is a native of Columbus, Nebraska.

Nick Cross—Graduated from Lynnville-Sully High School and went on to play four years at Central (Iowa) where he earned all-Iowa Conference honors at safety and was an all-academic all-conference selection before graduating in 2005.

Nate Maassen—Played for Northwestern (Iowa) from 1996-1999. Was a member of the 1996 team that qualified for the NAIA playoffs and advanced to the quarterfinal round of the playoffs. Is a 1996 graduate of MOC Floyd Valley High School.

Eric Scott—Was most recently at Culver-Stockton (Missouri) where he coached running backs and wide receivers. Earned his Master’s degree from East Central (Oklahoma) and also coached running backs at the Ada, Oklahoma school.

Micah Stanley—A 2006 graduate of Central Valley Christian High School (California). Spent one season as an assistant coach at the same school while attending College of the Sequioas.

Harry Wieringa—A 1993 Dordt College graduate and a 1989 graduate of Unity Christian High School (Iowa). Also serves on the Dordt College Alumni Council.

Derek Peters—A 2004 graduate of Denver Christian High School. Played center on a team that won the Colorado Class 2A state title.

These individuals, along with Bill Bauer and Wade Whites make up coach John Heavner’s first coaching staff. All are spending at least some time with the Dordt College program in helping us get started.

The sun is shining, it’s going to be a great day!!!!!!!!!!

Published on August 22, 2007 in Uncategorized. Closed

Alright, this is where we’re at. You’ll see some preview stories about the upcoming volleyball and men’s soccer openers this weekend on the athletics website. We’re putting the finishing touches on the men’s soccer roster and that should be up on our website in the next day or so.

If you haven’t noticed, the volleyball roster is up….that got finalized on Monday. No real surprises. Tis may be one of the tallest teams Dordt has had in recent memory. Ten of the twenty players in the program are 5-11 or taller. By the way, Bill Dreise is back to coach the Junior Varsity for the sixth season.

Rain has hampered the practice schedule the last couple days, after the June and July we had it’s hard to believe I’m saying that. Fields are holding up……..so far.

Checked the progress on the pressbox at Open Space Park today. They hoped to texture and prime the inside walls today….slow drying with the humid weather we’ve been having and no air conditioning to suck the moisture out. Still hoping to have it usable for the game on September 3.

Speaking of September 3, KDCR does plan to broadcast the game on Labor Day. There’s a tailgate party taking place as well and some of the KDCR staff will be buzzing around, broadcasting live. We get underway with our first play by play event on Tuesday, August 28 with a volleyball match at the Lied Center in Omaha, Nebraska when the Defenders face the College of Saint Mary Flames. Always a good time when we go to CSM….they are passionate about their volleyball at the all-woman’s school.

Gotta go………

Gold Golf Club Tournament

Published on August 18, 2007 in Uncategorized. Closed

Here are some pictures taken at the Defender Gold Golf Tournament in July. Taken courtesy of the football coaches who were stationed at one of the holes as part of a special fundraiser.

Try to ignore some of the form…………………:)

http://www.dordt.edu/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=5498

National Rankings

Published on August 16, 2007 in Uncategorized. Closed

The volleyball rankings for the NAIA are out and NAIA Region III of which Dordt College is a member is well represented. The Dordt College Defenders are ranked 22nd after ending last year at 15th. They started practice yesterday. Watched for a few minutes today. Coach VB was experimenting with some different lineups already–now’s the time to do that. National American is the pre-season favorite nationwide. I would imagine they will again rely on a lineup full of players from Brazil with international play experience. Dickinson State, another team from NAIA Region III is ranked 5th and typically relies on international players as well. Hastings and Northwestern, two national tournament qualifiers from 2006 are ranked in the top-15. This season, like every other season I’ve seen at Dordt, will not be easy. Six teams in the initial top-25 are on the Dordt schedule this season.

Men’s soccer started their workouts today with conditioning in the morning and then a few different sessions in the afternoon. Some of the newcomers look they could fit in nicely….developing.

By the way, it looks like this will be the last season in which we rely on the Regional system for qualifying to NAIA national tournaments. New plans are taking shape and we’re beginning to see some flesh on that skeleton…..I’ll try to keep you up to date as the plans are finalized.

The football team is also off and running. Because this is the first ever team we’re taking not and documenting a few activities during “training camp”. Pictures are up and can be viewed here http://www.dordt.edu/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=5500 of the practice from Wednesday, August 15. Thanks to Jamin Ver Velde, Dordt College Graphic Design Artist for taking the pictures.

I continue to be amazed at the work the various coaches put into preparing for a season and the hours they put in during “camp” to get their teams off to a good start. I’ll go through the lists of assistant coaches for the various sports in the coming days.

Rankings

Published on August 15, 2007 in Uncategorized. Closed

Regional rankings just came out from the NAIA Region III.

The Dordt women’s soccer team is ranked third behind Morningside and Midland College and the volleyball team is tied for fifth with National American #1, Dickinson State #2, Hastings #3, Northwestern #4 and Doane is tied with Dordt College.

National football rankings are the only rankings out from the NAIA yet. Sioux Falls is #1, Northwestern is #7 and Morningside is #11. Nebraska Wesleyan is receiving votes.

They’re Here

Published on August 15, 2007 in Uncategorized. Closed

A new chapter in Dordt College history began this week with the first ever Dordt College football team reporting for practice on Monday, August 13. Two years of planning has culminated with a practice last night (Tuesday). At this point, I got the sense that it was simply time to move on to this next step. The coaches had done all the preparing they could do and it’s time to work through the things that come up planning for practice and games.

In all there are about 65 players in camp. Everyone who said they were coming this summer did and that was/is a great sign. By the way, the roster is up on our website on the football link.

Coach Van Den Bosch had his first practice with his volleyball team this morning (Wednesday). They have a scrimmage scheduled for next Wednesday night in the Rec Center. I anticipate putting the roster up on the website for volleyball early next week.

Men’s soccer players are moving in and will start practice on Thursday.

For those who are curious, classes begin two weeks from today on August 29.

Finally, I’ve had some individuals comment on the fact that they find much more out regarding Dordt College athletics by visiting our website than by what they read in some of our area daily newspapers. To that I say, ” You should.”

For the most up to date Dordt College athletic information regarding schedules, scores and news your best resource is the www.dordt.edu/athletics This is where our priority is. While I appreciate the coverage tv, radio and newspapers give us, they simply can’t accomodate all the information I send them and they must pick and choose what to use. At the same time, we control the information on our website, so, you are bound to be much more up to date by relying on our website.

Feel free to subscribe to our sports update list, this sends news, scores and stats to your registered e mail address on a near daily basis during the school year. We’ll also be advancing our sound archive a bit in the coming school year to be more extensive. And finally, I hope to continue blogging. If you enjoy some of our features, please, tell your friends. If you’d like to see something changed or added let me know and I’ll seeif we can make something happen with the staff we have on hand in the sports information office.

Spread the word……………

Hang on……Here they come

Published on August 9, 2007 in Uncategorized. Closed

Heading toward what will be the last quiet weekend on campus for a while. Athletes begin reporting on Monday, August 13 and from there the busy-ness takes over.

Pre-season polls are out for soccer, volleyball and football. Final thoughts on the football media day. Good time to catch up with people I haven’t seen for a while. Steve Allspach, a long time writer with the Sioux City Journal wrote a very nice article about the Dordt College football program and also about the GPAC in general. If you haven’t read it yet, pick it up. Coach Heavner performed well in front of the cameras and mics–something that isn’t always easy to do.

Volleyball team is picked third in the GPAC poll. Getting a lot of credit for the run they went on last year at the end of the season to win the GPAC post-season tournament….looking forward to seeing how Kristin De Ronde is doing in her recovery from spring knee surgery. Also am curious to see some of the newcomers who will need to play roles this fall. Emily Van Voorst is back to set again so there will be continuity there. Hastings ran the table last year in going 16-0 in the conference last year and are the coaches’ pick to repeat. Pretty tight balloting between them and Northwestern. Dordt opens with the Red Raider Classic on August 24 and 25 with four matches.

The Defender women’s soccer team is fourth in the pre-season balloting. Kate Du Mez is the top returner in terms of scoring. Lots of spots to fill including Suzanne Clark’s sweeper position. The women don’t play until August 31–they don’t get rolling until the week of the 20th.

The men are picked seventh. Kind of surpised. Thought they might be in the top-5. Everyone is chasing Hastings who was the overwhelming pick for first place. Ryan Coon is back for his senior season and is among the career leaders in scoring at Dordt College. Brandon Vander Wel was the starter in goal for 17 games last year and surrendered under 1.7 goals per game. Other experienced players include Tim Walstra, Craig Humpreys, Brett Kroeze and a few others. Siam Grobler had a great season cut short last year by injury….anxious to see how his recovery has gone. The soccer team gets rolling with practice on August 15 and open their season on August 24 also at Northwestern against Jamestown and Waldorf.

Football team will start practice on Tuesday. Host a media day on Saturday, August 25 at 9:15 with a scrimmage at 11:30 on the same day. Both events are open to the public.

Fall sports preview luncheon on Thursday, August 23. Coach Van Den Bosch,Coach Elgersma and Coach Heavner will all be available for comment. Starts at noon in the Dordt College WestCommons. Call Wes Fopma at 712-722-6028or e mail him at wfopma@dordt.edu