Concordia Camp Part Three: Recap, Reigning Champs and Analysis

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Concordia University hosted their Team Camp Play Day on Friday.  Here is the third and final part of my time in Walz Arena and the fieldhouse in Seward, NE. Here is another look at some participating schools and contenders in November.  Lincoln Lutheran, Seward, Malcolm, Cross County and Centura all made the Top Bracket out of 35 teams for Friday’s afternoon tourney. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Class C-1 reigning champ Lincoln Lutheran did not miss a beat in the game against possible contender C-2  Cross County in the second match of the morning. Lutheran did a nice job of tooling off the big block of Cross County and hit line well against the Cougars perimeter defense. I was impressed with how well the Warriors ran their quicks in the middle. Lincoln Lutheran will have to replace All-Stater Mariah Buss who had 624 kills last year during their gold medal season. Look for them to look to senior Abi Wohlgemuth who hammered 221 kills last fall and junior [player_tooltip player_id="82215" first="Ashlyn" last="DeBoer"] who registered 115 kills and 502 set assists. One thing that also stood out to me was how well Lutheran could find weaknesses in opposing defenses. Cross County struggled with ball handling and </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">it was hard to get the ball to the senior duo, Crossroads Conference First Team picks of OH Cortlyn Schaefer and MB [player_tooltip player_id="78628" first="Erica" last="Stratman"]. The Cougars did a nice job serving aggressively to try and slow down Lutheran’s attack. Once the Cougars get their ball handling and young setters going they will have a powerful net game this fall. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The next match featured Malcom, who was very fun to watch! I sensed really good chemistry, communication and energy. Every player hustled all over the floor the entire match. Any point lost was not due to effort for sure. They were really good out of system too. The setter was able to distribute the ball so well and overall the whole team played smart. The Clippers return a load of young talent this fall in 6’1" sophomore [player_tooltip player_id="59193" first="Grace" last="Baumert"] who hammered away 326 kills last year. 5’8" sophomore Kiley Elkins had 389 kills last year and 79 ace serves. Look for this team to be ready to take it to the next level this fall with more experienced talent!</span></p> <p><em>Editor’s note: After the publishing of this article, we were made aware that Grace and [player_tooltip player_id="58770" first="Ellie" last="Baumert"] will no longer be attending Malcolm School this fall. They will be playing at Howells-Dodge. </em></p> [caption id="attachment_101120" align="alignleft" width="266"]<img class=" wp-image-101120" src="https://prephoops-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/pd/uploads/2020/07/IMG_4935-rotated-300x197.jpg" alt="" width="266" height="175" /> Malcolm warms up for the morning matches<span style="font-size: 1rem;"> </span>[/caption] <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Seward looked scrappy and served well in  their win against Doniphan-Trumbull during the 10:30 match. Both setters from both teams did a great job of distributing the ball well. Seward did a nice job getting the ball to Seward’s 6"0 middle blocker [player_tooltip player_id="82573" first="Abbey" last="Ringler"]. Centura also was very scrappy on defense. They found ways to make plays and had great energy!  They will need to overcome some unforced errors, but they had really good effort overall to building a successful season. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Overall the atmosphere at Concordia was great! You could sense that the athletes and coaches were glad to be back in the gym and on the floor. It had a lot of great teams from all areas of the state and different levels of classes. </span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p>