In the span of eight days, Dordt cross country lived out two defining snapshots of its season: the anticipation of Championship Week and the ensuing performances that came with a GPAC women's title and a runner-up men's finish. For head coach Nate Wolf, the run-up and the aftermath told a consistent story of teams embracing expectations and opportunities.

When Wolf sat down ahead of the GPAC Championships, the season had entered the familiar late-fall rhythm: cold mornings, crackling leaves, and the growing sense that everything they'd worked for was coming to a head. With both rosters returning major experience,  the women brought back all ten runners from last year's conference lineup, Wolf expected strength, but he didn't necessarily predict just how quickly his younger groups would elevate.

"I'm not sure that I maybe would have anticipated that we would have had some of the younger athletes acclimate…as quickly as they did," he said. On the men's side, with a senior-heavy roster, the steadiness came from veterans, but the emergence of runners like Stephen Hebert helped lift the level of competition. "I knew he would be a contributor at some point, but I'm not sure I thought he'd be our fifth runner at a meet."

What he did anticipate was depth, especially on the women's side, where, as he put it, "these women are all driven in all areas of their lives." The team's internal motivation, its ability to trust one another, and its high academic and relational investment created an atmosphere where competition for limited travel and championship spots became an everyday sharpening force. "One of my jobs is to express belief in them…to paint a picture that is accurate of what their abilities and their work ethic are commensurate to," Wolf said.

Even with competitive depth on both sides, Wolf carried what he calls a "pleasant anxiety" into the meet — a nervousness softened with experience. "Earlier in my career there was a lot of, 'what's going to go wrong?' angst," he said. "At this point…the work is done, and what will be will be."

A week later, after his teams produced one of their strongest combined showings of the season, Wolf's outlook reflected satisfaction grounded in performance rather than results. The women controlled the GPAC Championships with 10 runners in the top 14 and a perfect team score, while the men delivered a complete race to finish second behind a Doane team that had to run its best day of the year to win.

"I thought it was the best race of both programs this year," Wolf said. "Both groups went into the meet healthy for the first time…and performed really well."

On the women's side, the win was built on collective execution. While freshman Corinne Braun claimed the individual title, the race's defining moment came 2,000 meters in — not from Braun, but from Jenna Hursh, Dordt's eighth runner on the day.
"Jenna decided she was going to go to the lead," Wolf recalled. "Afterwards the pack said, 'We were so glad she did that.' It kind of woke everybody up." Hirsch's surge reset the race's tempo and pulled her teammates with her. Wolf noted that even though she didn't factor into scoring, her move "made the race happen for us."

That moment also revealed the team's remarkable depth. Wolf estimated that the next five women who stayed home — runners 15 through 19 on the depth chart — would have scored 65 points based solely on their performances at the Holiday Inn Express meet. That total, he said, "would have placed them second to the group that ran." He believes they have "20 women that…could place in the top 15 at the conference meet."

For a team still young — only one upperclassman will race at nationals — the performance offered a preview of their postseason ceiling. The Defenders stayed seventh in the national ratings, but Wolf sees legitimate potential. "I think we can finish in the top five," he said. "I think that one through five gap will determine where we can finish…but we're similar to the top teams in a lot of ways."

The men's performance also earned Wolf's praise. Despite finishing behind Doane, he believed his group delivered exactly the race they needed.

"We competed really, really well," he said. Wolf had been telling his staff for two weeks that senior Truman Johnson had a chance to win — and he did. Behind him, the lineup came together: Luke Swanson returning strong from illness, Tage Holstein posting one of his best races, and freshmen Hudson Hamilton and Hebert both dipping under 26 minutes.

Total team time comparisons showed improvement that metrics alone might miss. "Two weeks prior, we would have finished second, maybe third," Wolf said of a large meet where Dordt's combined times stood shoulder-to-shoulder with top national programs. "We actually beat Doane's team time from that meet."

Doane's championship performance was needed to hold off Dordt. "It took Doane's best day to beat us," Wolf said. "And if the tables were turned, we would have had to run our best to beat them too."

Both teams now pivot toward the NAIA Championships, carrying momentum and confidence. But internally, a different kind of transition is underway. Wolf described a "changing of the guard" — a natural shift as large senior classes prepare to pass the program to a rising wave of underclassmen.  While the women earned a berth as a team in the championship race on Friday, November 21, the men had individual qualifiers in Truman Johnson and Luke Swanson.

It's a transition marked by stewardship more than anxiety. "They really want to invest in the underclassmen and see the program continue to be successful after they leave," Wolf said of his seniors. "They have done an outstanding job of leading."

The coming national meet will test that blend of experience and youth. It will also serve as another benchmark of the program's depth.

"We wanted to represent the work of the entire team," Wolf said of his women's group. "There are a lot of people who had outstanding seasons and prepared hard and raced really well."