Monthly Archive for February, 2010

How do you sum up a season in a few paragraphs?  How do you put on paper what players mean to and have meant to a program?  It’s not easy and with sleep still elusive as the bus rolls on and with  Billy Joel and Elton John keeping me company as we roll  through the night  here goes.

A couple of tough losses for the Defender basketball teams tonight.  For the women the script had them beating Briar Cliff to avenge a loss they felt was stolen from them in early February.  Briar Cliff deviated from the script and got out to a double digit lead and Dordt had to stray from the game plan, and, well, things got awfully tough with things snowballing from there.  Points were hard to come from, Briar Cliff got easy baskets and the Dordt season came to a close at 19-13.

The men were slow in starting, getting lots of good shots early, but weren’t able to make them.  I don’t think it was a matter of them being tight…maybe tired but not tight.  Still down 23 with under 12 minutes left the Defenders proceeded to score 57 points in the remaining minutes, cutting the lead to four with a minute left and they made the Broncos sweat it, but the hill was too steep on Thursday and the Defenders fell 106-101.  76 points in the second half.  As coach Douma said on the bus, “it would have been a great story if we’d won.”  That sums it up.  76 points in a half is a new school record, by the way, breaking the old record of 69.

And now it’s done.  A season that began with a road trip to North Dakota in early November ends with a pair of road trips to Briar Cliff and Hastings.  And for six seniors, for the first time in four years of college basketball there is no practice tomorrow and nothing to work on and improve on basketball wise.

McKinzie Schmidt and Kate Du Mez will leave Dordt littering the record books with numbers that don’t do justice for what they’ve meant to the athletic program.  Schmidt got as much out of her ability as any player I’ve been around.  Not the highest jumper, nor the fastest runner, she made a lot of mid-range jumpers to get all the way to 1000 points.  Ends with 900 career rebounds as well.

Kate Du Mez was as rare a player as I think I may ever see.  Someone may come along to match her numbers in one sport or the other, but the combined two-sport excellence the Wisconsin native  exhibited will live on for a long time in the memories of those who watched her.  Beyond the numbers she was as fierce a competitor as I’ve seen and I truly mean it when I say she is a once in a decade type talent for our level.  She was the kind of player you hated to face and the kind you love to have on your team.  We may not know until next season how much those two players will be missed.

Near Christmas the men’s team was  at a crossroads, and I doubt I was the only person who thought things might go south on the young team.  Didn’t happen, and, according to coach Douma, that was due largely in part because the seniors refused to let that happen.  Brett Heidema accepted a role as a player who logged a few minutes a game and didn’t get much in the way of points but he worked and made people better and took pressure off some younger players.  Justin Van Kooten was the back up point guard and well, when you back up Michael Eekhoff,  you aren’t going to get a bunch of minutes.  Van Kooten was the player who worked as hard as anyone in the off season and got himself into good shape.  He, more than anyone else, provided the vocal leadership this team needed when things weren’t going well.

Michael and Logan, Logan and Michael, they’ll be forever linked.  As good a pair as we’ve had at Dordt.  Durable, lots of points, lots of rebounds, lots of minutes and lots of thrills.  Buzzer beaters and circus shots.  I put them in that handful of players that people made a point of coming to see over their careers at Dordt because you didn’t know what they were going to do and you didn’t want to miss it when they did it.  Logan could score and this year he pushed himself in ways that I would think he didn’t imagine were possible.  He was better defensively and in Coach Douma’s words “He became our best practice player.”   Michael?  Well, I’ve said it so many times that I’m sure some people are sick of it, but I’ll say it again.  When the ball was in his hands it was magic.

Seniors, as you leave your respective programs, thank you.

That’s how I would have described the chances of Dordt making the National Tournament in hockey this year.  Struggled to find consistency through the course of the season.  Good for the guys and coach Elgersma.  Now they have a little time off to prepare for the nationals March 10-14.  We’ll have more information on scheduling and webcasts in the coming days.

A few milestones were met yesterday at the basketball games in Crete.  Amber Soodsma is now tied for the all-time single season points record with 475 after her 27 point salvo on Saturday.  Kate Du Mez went over 1300 career points and is within striking distance of second all-time.  The men made a team record 17 three-pointers, shattering the previous mark of 15 set in a game against the Huron Screaming Eagles in February of 1997.  Du Mez is also the all-time leader in field goal attempts now.

The Defender women won their 18th game which ranks for a second all-time, tying the 1991-1992 team.  The all-time record is 19 which was set in 1990-1991.  As Bruce Springsteen sung me home on Saturday night I looked that fact up. As the Boss sang about Thunder Road I had to chuckle.  1991-1992.  You know who was the broadcast team for several of those games?  A couple of students, one of which didn’t know what he was doing.  That would be me.  The guy who knew what he was doing–Gregg Zonnefeld.  Good grief.  Zonnefeld has moved on to bigger and better things and is now the superintendant at Central Wisconsin Christian, me, well I’m still trying to make something of myself.

That 1991-1992 team made it to the District 15 finals against Mount Mercy in Cedar Rapids.  Got behind big early and then scrapped in falling short of a berth in the national tournament.  That team was similar to this year’s team in that they left the record books littered with names.  Team was led by a mix of seniors and a couple underclassmen.  Didn’t go very deep in the rotation regularly.  Coach Len Rhoda was at the helm.  Jill Bousema left with the career scoring mark with 1318….she was the scorer.  Beth Hollander was a sophomore post player that set a single season scoring record with 475 points and was on the back side of the defense swatting shots away as the Dordt perimeter players had the luxury of gambling with her to protect the basket.  Hollander left after two seasons with over 700 points and 300 rebounds.  Lou Ann Bolkema was the defensive stopper and left with the career steals mark with 334 steals and she had 606 points and 546 rebounds after making the switch from six player basketball in high school.  Lisa Wubben was the do it all player–kind of filled in where she was needed and ended up with 855 points and 708 rebounds–may have been the most athletic player on that team.  Finally the point guard, and I had to explore the deeper recesses of my mind for this one, was Tawnia Vander Veen (I think) what I remember most about her was she didn’t make mistakes and didn’t turn it over.  Main player off the bench was Carla Zevenbergen, if my memory serves correctly……this was  a long time ago you know.

Well, there’s your history lesson for the day…..hopefully there’s more history in the making on the way, the next week will tell.

Man, do I feel old………..

Hmmm…..ok, the scenarios are a little murky in the GPAC standings but fairly straight forward for the Dordt teams.

Here are the women’s standings:

Hastings 15-1

Northwestern 14-3

Briar Cliff 12-5

Morningside 11-6

Concordia 11-7

Dordt 9-8

Mount Marty 9-8

Sioux Falls 9-8

Doane 8-9

Nebraska Wesleyan 4-13

Dakota Wesleyan 4-13

Midland Lutheran 3-14

Dana 1-16

And the men:

Dakota Wesleyan 15-2

Hastings 13-4

Sioux Falls 12-5

Briar Cliff 12-5

Concordia 11-7

Dordt 9-8

Northwestern 9-8

Nebraska Wesleyan 8-9

Morningside 5-12

Doane 5-12

Dana 5-12

Mount Marty 4-13

Midland Lutheran 2-15

Here’s what we know for certain. Hastings will win the women’s regular season title and Dakota Wesleyan will take the men’s crown. Dana will finish 13^th on the women’s side and Midland Lutheran will be 13^th in the final standings in the men’s division. After that, wow, the scenarios abound.

First, for the Dordt teams….a women’s win at Doane will get Dordt to 6^th and in a likely tie with one or two other teams as Mount Marty and Sioux Falls play Dana and Northwestern respectively. A two way tie with Mount Marty gives the advantage to Dordt because of head to head wins by the Defenders over the Lancers. Suffice it to say a win by the Defenders locks them into a home game on Tuesday night while a loss likely drops Dordt to 9^th and sends them on the road Tuesday.

Men, locked into sixth or seventh. A win by Dordt on Saturday gives them sixth and a game at home against Mount Marty, Dana, Doane or Morningside, all of whom could finish in a four way tie for 9^th—too many scenarios that I don’t want to haul out the tiebreakers on them with necessity. A loss by Dordt on Saturday combined with a Northwestern win allows Northwestern to leap frog the Defenders back to sixth and Dordt to seventh at which point they’d play one of those four teams as well.

On the men’s side a three way tie for second is very possible. If Hastings loses to Dakota Wesleyan at the Corn Palace; Sioux Falls beats Northwestern in Orange City and Briar Cliff handles Midland Lutheran on the road a three-way tie will occur, and, if I have all my information correct, Sioux Falls would be the second seed, Briar Cliff the third and Hastings fourth. Concordia men will finish fifth and are in the clubhouse right now with an 11-7 mark.

Waiting on hockey results from Vegas. Blades play Air Force late this afternoon into this evening. Need a win to stay alive for a national tournament berth. Top two teams out of the eight team field advance to the national tournament in Florida.

As previously noted the Dordt College baseball team hosted Terry Steinbach yesterday and he spoke to the team about his experiences, his baseball career and challenged them to improve and be good teammates.  That’s a very condensed version, but in the interest of space limitations, that’s what I’ll stick with.  Ashlee Stallinga, a student at Dordt and an assistant in the sports information office, had the opportunity to sit in while Coach Schouten, Wayne Dekkers and Terry visited yesterday and she filed a story for the Diamond which also appears on our website and in a blog posted earlier today.

Got me to thinking about some of the individuals I’ve had the opportunity to meet and interview over the past 15 years or so.  Steinbach  goes in the class of people who reached the pinnacle of their sport.  He won a World Series with the Athletics and appeared in two others.  He was also an all-star game mvp and had the opportunity to play out his career with his home state team, the Minnesota Twins.  Of comparison, for me,  is Vern Den Herder who was  member of a Super Bowl Champion Miami Dolphin team and the undefeated squad of the mid-1970′s.  Also met and interviewed Tom Brands shortly after he won a wrestling gold medal at the Atlanta Olympics.

Those are three men who competed at the highest level and succeeded.

When I interviewed Brands he was coming right off the gold medal high.  Hyper and wound as tight as a violin string.  Ready to take on the world and had a king size chip on his shoulder.  In fact, he may have had a chip on both shoulders.  But that’s part of what made him succesful as a wrestler and what makes him succesful now as a coach.

Den Herder, well, that was when the Patriots were making a run at 19-0 two years ago only to fall short with a loss in the Super Bowl.  I remember him as having an air about him that he’d been to the top of the mountain, and he knew something we didn’t.  Confidence, that’s the word I’ll go with.

Finally, Steinbach.  As down to earth  as you will find.  Really wants to help others succeed.  I was surprised in listening to him how much he talked about his failings and shortcomings as a ballplayer.  Here’s a guy who shared a locker room with some of the biggest names in sports at the time, a time when the A’s were like a rock band on tour, and you could put him in a crowd and he wouldn’t stand out, nor would he need the spotlight.  I hope the baseball team enjoyed hearing him speak, I know I did.

There are the differences.  The similarity?  Every one of them exhibited a passion when they spoke about their respective experiences, and every one of them was effective in conveying that passion even though they did it in very different ways.

I guess there is more than one way to skin a cat……….

a few days late.

Both basketball teams rebounded from disappointing losses to Briar Cliff with wins on Saturday.  The women started slowly but throttled Midland Lutheran defensively in the second half while allowing just four made field goals and a total of 14 points.

Men had a fast start and had enough of a cushion to take an 18 point win over the Warriors.  Keep in mind the Midland men had been playing everyone tough so a double digit win was not expected.

Julia De Koekkoek was named player of the week for her 30 points against Briar Cliff and 20 points against Midland Lutheran.  Third time since the formation of the GPAC a Dordt player has earned the honor.  Kate Du Mez did the trick last season and Lindsey Van Wyk claimed the honor  a few years ago.  It was Van Wyk’s 30 point efforts that De Koekkoek matched…second highest single game scoring total for an individual in the last nine years, topped only by Jenna O’Neill’s 31 points against Si Tanka Huron.

Track had a good day on Saturday in Vermillion and prepares for the meet they host on Friday in Sioux Center and the Blades split their games on Friday and Saturday against Iowa State, all but assuring themselves a spot in the Regional tournament in Las Vegas in ten days….that should be finalized tomorrow.

Baseball meet the team is up for the 2010 season.  Season opener scheduled for next weekend-we’ll see if the weather holds in Manhattan, Kansas.