Wede's Blog

Playoff baseball...I'm not sure there is a time of the year I enjoy more than the current setting in professional sports.  Playoff baseball and the NFL, what a thing of beauty.  Baseball wise, it's a lot more fun to watch the playoffs when your team is involved, this year my Astros were unable to compete for the NL Central crown or the Wild Card.  That is a whole different story for a different time though.  Now the focus of the media has been on the Yankees the last week or so, and with good reason, their payroll is much higher than the other playoff teams.  Cleveland, Colorado, and Arizona all are under 70 million for their payrolls.  The three of them added together don't equal the payroll of the Yankees, in fact, Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi, and Derek Jeter earn more than all the players on those teams do.  Make no mistake about my ranting though, I'm not a Yankee hater, I was actually rooting for them to win, I just cannot fathom having a roster like that and NOT winning it all.  Jason Stark says everything in his ESPN post found HERE.

The NFL season is also an exciting time for me.  There are three things you can count on, death, taxes, and me having MLB Extra Innings and NFL Sunday Ticket on DirecTv.  To steal a line from a former baseball coach here, those are three non-negotiables.  I enjoy watching the Vikings of Minnesota competing on Sundays and really enjoy watching my fantasy players score bundles of points for my Orange City Wooden Shoes team.  I was lucky enough to pick up two of the bigger disappointments this season, Drew Brees AND Stephen Jackson.  Two underachieving stars leads to a poor season, I am 1-4 at this point.

In Raider Land, Northwestern put on a couple of good shows last night, one in the Bultman Center featuring the Volleyball teams of Northwestern and Mount Marty and the other on Korver Field starring Briar Cliff's men and women's soccer teams against Northwestern's soccer teams.  The first completed contest was the women's soccer match.  I had the task of calling the game on the Internet and also possibly had the best seat in Raider Land for the match.  In a cold and somewhat windy setting Northwestern came back from down 1-0 in the second half to force an overtime period.  Neither team was able to score in the first OT and a second OT was needed.  The only thing on the line for Northwestern was the best start in school history (conference games only) and a perfect conference record.  Briar Cliff was looking to move to .500 overall and .500 in the conference, so it was a very important match for both schools.  In the second overtime Northwestern got a goal from Jamise Retzlaff to win it.  Few things in sports are as good as a golden goal, a walk-off home run, a buzzer beater, a successful hail Mary, or a game winning ace.  From my seat in the press box I could see the play developing as Retzlaff had the ball.  I saw the lane open and her shot was perfectly executed through the lane provided.  What a way to score your first goal of the season!

The men's game was much less exciting, merely a 4-0 ho hum victory.  Four goals by four different players.  The most exciting plays of this match were the saves made by Ben Schneider.  Our defense made some great plays and Schneider made some very athletic saves, saves that I would have no chance at making.  

I really like the brand of soccer we play and any parent should be proud that their son or daughter plays for coach Buchholz.  In the two years I have been at soccer matches I feel proud to say that he carries himself very professionally and coaches like he is truly interested in his players well being.  Coaches who do the right things will ultimately be rewarded and Buchholz is an example of that, in fact I feel very strongly that our coaching staff (Northwestern Athletic Department) is full of coaches under that umbrella.  This is a great place to work and I would like to thank everyone here that has given me the opportunity to be a part of this place.

Our volleyball team defeated Mt. Marty 3-0 and is holding on to a #19 NAIA ranking currently.  They are a very talented young group of women who play very good volleyball.  If you have a daughter interested in college volleyball, I encourage you to come watch Northwestern play, you will be very impressed.

Feel free to comment.

Wow!  What a successful weekend to be a Northwestern Red Raider.  Raider volleyball went 2-0 on the weekend, defeating DWU and NWU 3-0 at home, men's and women's soccer both won at Doane, 2-0 and 2-1, women's cross country brought home a first place trophy from the Briar Cliff Invitational, Olivia Johnson and Charity Miles came in 1st and 2nd individually, the men's team came in 6th of 11.  Coach Otten's football team defeated Briar Cliff 28-14 and moved to 5-1 overall.

Then there were the alumni games, Softball took down the alumni 10-3, Wrestling manhandled the alumni, and last but not least, Baseball beat the alumni 10-3.  The alumni gave us an early scare as, Brady Aalbers and Dave Bomgaars got first inning hits in front of Koury Kramer, who blasted a 400 ft. bomb off All-American Mihai Burlea.  That would be all the alumni would get as our pitching shut down their hitting the rest of the way.  Their pitching was able to keep us scoreless for two innings, the first two.  We had quite a few extra base hits and I think we played our best baseball the last week of the fall.  Now we get a couple weeks off before our winter conditioning and weight lifting starts up.  I'm sure the guys are looking forward to that stuff.

It's homecoming week in Orange City and a lot of teams are getting ready for the weekend.  Baseball plays the alumni on Saturday at 10:00 a.m., the game will be followed by a lunch at the MOC-FV H.S.  Volleyball takes on Nebraska Wesleyan, Wrestling takes on the alumni, Soccer heads to Crete, Nebr. to play Doane, Softball takes on the alumni, Cross Country runs at the Briar Cliff Invitational, and of course Football is at home versus Briar Cliff.  There are a lot of activities planned for the 125th anniversary, be sure to check them all out.

Baseball wraps up the fall tonight and tomorrow.  Tomorrow we get to show the alumni what the current team is like and introduce the players/coaches to them.  We don't hold anything back and really look forward to showing them that we are a better team than they are, but that SHOULD happen, we've been practicing and playing consistently, while some of them haven't done any baseball activities in months or sometimes years.  I like the current squad we have put together, it's a good mix of seniors, juniors, sophomores, and freshman.  

A recruit's dad asked me what I thought our best attribute as a team was yesterday, and I wasn't sure how to answer him, but I'm fairly certain that it is our experience.  Codie Zeutenhorst (Sr.) has started three years, Jake Jansen (Jr.) has started two years, Austin Malone (Jr.) has started two years, Justin Lane (Sr.) started two years at a junior college and one year here last year, Grant Wall (Jr.) has started two years, Joe Heitritter (Sr.) has started three years, Matt Gray (So.) was a starter last year, and Curtis Bomgaars (So.) was a starter last  year.

Pitching will be the key to our season, Mihai Burlea, Justin Lane,  and Joe Grady come back with a lot of experience, Trevor Kuiper has been a conference starter, Andrew Engesser pitched some big innings for us last season, Brad Payne went 3-0 as a freshman, Stuart Moore has good stuff, and our freshman class of Mike Zoellner, Brett Westra, Drew Nonnemacher, Brian Woody, Kent Drickey, and Nick Crippin are maybe the most talented group of pitchers we have brought is as freshman.  It will be nice to see how they develop over the next four years but at the same time many of them will see time on the mound this year as freshman.

Depth is also something we have going for us; Scott Mineart, Zoellner, Payne, Westra, and Nick Jones give us a very good backup set of infielders, Clint Gingerich will be the best backup catcher we have had since I've been here, and Justin Boersma, Drickey, and Zoellner give us good options in the OF as well.  There are a lot of guys I haven't mentioned but its hard to get everyone when there are 32 guys on the team.  Everyone we have is important to this team, and I hope I do a good job at making sure they know this.

Good luck to all Red Raider teams in action this weekend.

One of my friends is getting married and a bunch of my old teammates from Mt. Mercy got together to take Mike to St. Louis for a Cardinal game, little did I know that Northwestern's football team was going to complete maybe the most spectacular play in Northwestern football history and possibly GPAC football history.  I, as the play was happening, was just getting into southern Missouri, and was getting text messages from Tom Pier on the status of the game.  Tom had just emailed me that Concordia had made a FG with 1:00 left to take a 23-21 lead.  Then I didn't hear anything for about 5 minutes so I called Tom.....no answer.  I had to know what was happening, so I called Mike Zoellner, a freshman on the baseball team who was working the concession stand for the game.  He told me that I had to get that play on video.  I had no idea what he was talking about and he had no idea I wasn't at the game.  I told him and he proceeds to tell me that they blocked our field goal, we picked it up, threw it to a WR, he got to the five and fumbled as he was getting tackled, the ball scooted into the end zone and we recovered for a 27-23 win.  It sounded amazing and from all the people I heard from was nothing short of a miracle.  I got to work on Monday and hustled to the computer to watch "The Play."  The best part of the whole play was the play-by-play done by Dean Calsbeek, simply amazing.  His excitement tells the whole story, I could listen to that play over and over and over.  

As for the Cardinal--Astro game, very boring, 7-4 victory by the Cardinals.  The Astros (my team) did nothing right and gave up over 20 hits on the evening.  Two bright spots were 1.) Craig Biggio getting a base knock in his last game in St. Louis and 2.) Hunter Pence hitting a MONSTER 3-run homer.  New Busch Stadium is very nice and is a great place to watch a game, even from the fourth deck in the nose bleeds.  St. Louis is a beautiful city and the stadium really gives the fans a great view of downtown and of the Gateway Arch.    

Northwestern College will collide with Seward, Nebraska's Concordia University this weekend in Football, Men's Soccer, and Women's Soccer.  The Bulldog football team is off to a fast 2-1 start are receiving votes in the latest poll.  Northwestern dropped a few places, out of the top 10, this week after falling to NAIA reigning champion Sioux Falls last Saturday.  Men's soccer comes in 4-4 after beating Mount Marty 6-2 on Tuesday.  Women's soccer is 2-0 in GPAC play and enters the match with a lot of confidence.

The Wede's move to O.C. a week from Saturday.  Nicole, Nikolai, Larkin, and I are excited about the move, well, Nikki, Nik, and I are excited, Larkin just rolls with the flow.  

Playoff baseball is almost here, it looks like this will be the division/wild card winners:

NL East: NY Mets
NL Central: Chi. Cubs
NL West: Ari. Diamondbacks
NL Wild-card: SD Padres

AL East: Bos. Red Sox
AL Central: Cle. Indians
AL West: LA Angles
AL Wild-card: NY Yankees

If it is those 8 teams, it should make for some exciting playoffs.  Too bad the Astros aren't involved.