OK.  Here’s the weekend in a nutshell.  Women’s soccer had the weekend off.  Cross country qualified two runners, one man and one woman for the national meet in two weeks.  Football lost to the #1 team in the country.  Volleyball is still alive in the post-season GPAC playoffs.  Men’s basketball went 2-0 and women’s basketball went 1-1.  Hockey went 1-1.

That was the Reader’s Digest version.  Here’s the novel, or short story version.

Women’s soccer had practice on Saturday in preparing for their game on Tuesday against Midland Lutheran in Fremont, Nebraska in the GPAC semifinals.  A win by the Defenders coupled with a win by Dakota Wesleyan and the Defenders qualify for the post-season national tournament first round game.  A win by the Defenders and an upset by Hastings over Dakota Wesleyan allows Dordt to host the GPAC Championship on Saturday, November 14, where they’d need a win to qualify for the national tournament.  A loss on Tuesday, in all likelihood, ends the season for Dordt.

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Cross country qualified Brent Van Schepen for the national meet with his 15th place finish at the GPAC meet in a time of 25:59.  Michelle Steiger continued her fine season with here seventh top-10 finish in a row, taking eighth at the GPAC meet in Fremont, Nebraska with a time of 18:47.  For Van Schepen it’s the second year in a row he heads off to nationals while Steiger will be at the carnival for the first time.  The national meet is run at Vancouver, Washington.

The cross country meet also had its share of heartbreak for the Defenders with illness hitting some key competitors this past week.  David Christensen gave it a go, but from reports I’m hearing, he just didn’t have the gas in the tank to finish strong.  The mind and heart was there, the body disagreed.  Merissa Harkema, a freshman who had a solid season and probably would have had a shot at qualifying as well for the national meet, had to drop out after about 3200 meters in the 5000 meter race.  Examples of how fragile a successful season can be.

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Football traveled to Sioux Falls to face the #1 ranked Sioux Falls Cougars and lost a 58-0 decision.  An early fumble and a big play by the Cougars on offense and they were up 14-0. From what I was told the guys hung in and played hard, just overmatched by a team that is the class of the conference and nation.  Time to focus on the final game of the season with Dakota Wesleyan this Saturday.

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Volleyball was a 3-1 winner over Hastings on Saturday night.  The Defenders trailed late in sets one and two, winning set one 26-24 after trailing 24-21.  Dordt then won set two 28-26 after trailing 24-22.  Those kind of finishes are unheard of, and then to pull it off twice, well then you start to think it might just be your night.  Set three was all Hastings, but Dordt had two in the bank and jumped out to an early lead in set four.  The Broncos cut the difference to 15-12 near the midpoint and then imploded. Three hitting errors, a service error and a passing error cooked up a 20-12 lead for Dordt and they went on two win with Kendra Potgeter smoking three kills in the last four points for the win.  The junior had a team high 14 kills and Dorinda Hibma got to 35 digs in the win.  Next up?  Northwestern on Wednesday night at OC. The other semi has Doane facing Morningside in Sioux City.

Took a look at the at-large situation for the Defenders if they don’t get an automatic berth out of the playoffs—not promising.  Eight Golden State Athletic teams are hogging spots in front of them while two teams each out of the Frontier, Wolverine  Hoosier and Cascade conferences are taking up room.  We’ll see what the rankings on Tuesday look like before I start to map things out.

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Women’s basketball was 1-1 this weekend.  Dramatic 51-50 win in the Valley City State contest on Friday night.  Trailed 48-36 but ran off nine points in a row and then got an in the lane jumper from Amber Soodsma to take the lead at 51-50.  Julia DeKoekkoek got a steal on the inbounds play at mid-court after a Viking timeout and sealed the win.  Soodsma–16 points and eight rebounds.  McKinzie Schmidt a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Played a very good Jamestown team on Saturday and were right with the hosts until the mid point of the second half when the Jimmies blew a three point lead up to nine.  Playing on tired legs the Defenders just didn’t have a run in them and lost by a 65-52 margin.  Soodsma–21 points.  Jamestown, by the way, #6 in the country and will probably move up in the next poll.

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Men’s basketball got a pair of wins, outscoring Valley City State 94-87 in the Friday night game with Shawn Keizer erupting for 28 points including 4-4 on three’s.  Got out to a 23-4 lead in the opening minutes and then fought the Vikings off as they charged back to tie it with back to back three’s in the middle of the second half.  Showed some grit in maintaining the lead and got to the free throw line a lot, making most of them.

Day two, more of a grinder and what we can expect in the conference season.  68-65 win with Trevor Wolterstorff making two free throws for the margin of victory which held up after Jamestown had a shot to tie it at the end.  Brandon Oldenkamp went for 19 in the win and had a team high eight rebounds.  The boys also got 13 points from Michael Eekhoff and 17 from Wolterstorff.  Logan Kingma was in foul trouble most of the night and Jordan Vogel played about 22 minutes in a reserve role.  Two wins in North Dakota, that’s like getting two wins in the Black Hills.

Next up for the Defender teams a home doubleheader starting at 5:30 with Grand View.

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Hockey was able to get a pair of games in after having the previous weekends games whited out with Northern Colorado unable to leave the state with snow problems.  Got a win over Mesa State 7-3 with Nate Woudstra returning to play with a hat trick and an assist.  One night later the Blades faced the Air Force and lost 8-5.  Jordan Janz had two goals and three assists in the loss.  Blades return home to face Creighton on Friday and then travel to Omaha for a Saturday date with the Jays.

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Lots of miles this past week.  Thanks to John Slegers for covering the football game for KDCR and Alan Groenendyk for pulling a few extra hours on Saturday.  Thanks to my scoreboard watchers at home (wife and kids) who let me know how the basketball games were going when my internet connection started flaking out in the heart of Nebraska.  What  a long strange trip it was this weekend! Hope you enjoyed it.  Now, on to next week.