The future is bright for the Dordt University volleyball team.
The present isn’t so bad, either.
After beating Briar Cliff in straight sets (25-21, 25-20, 25-21) on Wednesday at the Newman Flanagan Center in Sioux City , Dordt moved to 12-4 on the season (2-1 in the GPAC), the school’s best start to a season since 2018, a year that the Defenders went 31-3 and reached the NAIA national semifinals.
It’s a dramatic turnover under head coach Jacki Smith after the team went 4-18 in 2023, her second year at Dordt.
“It’s exciting to have the success we’re having right now,” Smith said. “I credit that to the leaders on this team and the culture we’ve put in place here.
“Competition in practice has been great this season. We feel like we have a lot of depth. We’ve tried some different things with our rotation, and our players get pushed every day in practice. There’s plenty of times in practice where our pushers will beat our starters, or we’ll play with mixed teams, but at the same time, they’re all best friends off the court. They love each other and bring out the best in each other.”
Though the Chargers made all three sets close, Dordt played almost the entire match from out front.
The Dordt attack was superb in the middle set, nearing doubling Briar Cliff’s swing efficiency (.412 to .258) and going for 18 kills to the Chargers’ 12.
To open the first, Briar Cliff (7-8, 1-4 GPAC) scored the first two points of the match on an ace by senior libero Avery Beller and kill by senior outside hitter Isabel Lenz, but Dordt responded with five straight points, capped off by a kill by standout freshman Laney Wolfswinkel.
Dordt led the opening set 17-7 at one point to force a BCU timeout. The Chargers closed the gap some, but the Defenders closed out the set to take the 1-0 lead.
Briar Cliff took a 7-4 lead in Set 3 after a Dordt service error and clung to a slim lead until the Defenders tied it at 11 on a kill by sophomore middle Ada Dekkers. The set would see six more ties before Dordt took the lead for good after a service error by Briar Cliff made it 20-19 and kill by Dordt senior outside Ellie Dokter made it 21-19.
Dordt finished the match with 44 kills and a .172 team efficiency mark while Briar Cliff ended with 28 kills and swung .102.
Dokter led the match with 13 kills, Wolfswinkel went for seven kills and 11 digs and and one of Dordt’s three aces and Haley Kuperus finished with six kills.
“(Dokter) is one of our only seniors in our typical starting lineup,” Smith said. “We rely on a couple of sophomores to anchor our back line in Kylie Beckering and Haley Wielinga along with (junior) Amy Doef.”
Wolfswinkel has made a name for herself early in her Dordt career. An all-state prep at Cherokee Washington High School, she leads the team kills on the season with 171.
“Laney is leading us with Haley Kuperus, too,” Smith said. “They’re just now learning how good they can be.”
Dordt junior Carlee Jackson and freshman Chloe Huisman combined for 35 assists while Beckering tied BCU’s Beller for the match high in digs with 14 while Briar Cliff freshman Addy Pigott was second on the squad with nine.
Sophomore right side Caton Firkins had the BCU-high in kills with six. Junior outside Tamika Eastman had five and Lenz went for four.
BCU junior middle Valeria Viroomal was the only player for either side to have more than one ace (she had two), junior Kylie Hart and senior Iwalani Beltran combined for 23 assists and sophomore middle Aubrey Hoeft led the match in blocks with seven.
“Briar Cliff is a pesky team, they’re tough,” said Smith. “They’ve taken sets off of really good teams this season, especially in our conference.
“I’m very proud of how we played tonight, but we wanted to come into this match with some urgency to get it done and win this in three sets and we did that. We’ve played a lot of five-setters this season, so it’ll be fun for us to get home a little earlier.”
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Ryan Timmerman
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