Graduation weekend

This past weekend, we managed to have two of our children graduate from college.  Nathanael officially graduated from Concordia in Ann Arbor on Sunday, May 19.  Nathanael chose not to walk in the graduation ceremonies (despite Laura's questioning), but he has completed all that needed to be done for the diploma.  We are proud of him, and we are looking forward to see where he will working and what he will be doing.  He has some ideas, but no definitive plans at the moment.

And while we would have made efforts to get to Nathanael's graduation ceremonies in Ann Arbor, we were not terribly broken up about not having to drive through the night from New Ulm, Minnesota to Ann Arbor, Michigan to be at both graduations.

On Saturday, May 18, the whole family managed to be in attendance for Faith's graduation from Martin Luther College, as well as the Call service where Faith was assigned to be a teacher in a Lutheran school.  Faith graduated with a double major, meaning she was eligible to be assigned to any grades from K-12.  Faith's preference was for high school, and she was even recommended for the high school level.  Needless to say, we were all surprised when Faith was assigned to teach science to grades 5-8 at Mt. Lebanon Lutheran School in Milwaukee.  And of course, she will also be coaching.

Faith's Divine Call is certainly different than what was expected, and it is taking some time to wrap her mind around what all of this entails.  But different means different.  We cannot assess it as either good or bad until she experiences the staff, the students, the school, the work, living in Milwaukee, etc...  Early phone calls by Faith to the people at Mt. Lebanon have indicated that different will be good.  And if we believe the Holy Spirit is at work in his Church, then we also believe God thinks it is good that Faith will be serving at Mt. Lebanon.  We are proud of what she has accomplished in the past, and we are looking forward to what her future will be.

Here are some photos from the weekend.

The graduates, Nathanael and Faith.

Grandma & Grandpa Schmidt came to congratulate Faith in New Ulm.

In the Chapel of the Christ.

This photo shows two people who are agonizing over Faith's assignment.  Faith was hopeful that she might return to her alma mater, Michigan Lutheran Seminary, as a tutor.  (MLS did not get any new female tutors assigned to it.)  Philip, who will be a senior at MLS next year, was praying fervently that Faith would not be assigned to be a tutor while he is still there.  Both had strong reactions to the announcement of Faith's assignment--Faith was surprised; Philip was relieved.

Football -- Final edition for 2016

The final edition of the football portion of this blog includes a number of "lasts" in the Schroeder family.

The last game of the year for Michigan Lutheran Seminary came on Saturday, Novembmer 19 in the state semi-finals against Ottawa Lake-Whiteford, hosted at Edsel Ford High School in Dearborn.  Snow showers blew through before the game got started, but it all melted away for the game.  It's too bad.  I think the 4 inch snowman I made would have liked the game.  The winds, however, continued to blow from west to east (I think), that is, from our right to our left.

Whiteford had some big boys on their offensive line, which enabled them to run the ball and gain enough yards each three plays to get first down after first down.  MLS, on the other hand, was able to break long runs a few times, but we needed the ball a lot more to do more damage.  The end result was a 40-21 loss.

Although it was the last game of Caleb's season (who had one catch for a pretty good gain), it was not the last game of his career.  We anticipate a good senior year for him.  Meanwhile, on to basketball.

You can check out an article from M-Live here.

Pre-game optimism with Micah Neumann.

Caleb walks off the field for the last time in his Junior year.

From the way it sounds, Nathanael and Andrew have both played their last games at Concordia.  Andrew has plans to try to make a Division 1 squad.  Right now, we are hoping that the University of Cincinnati will be his destination.  We are still waiting for all the steps to be taken to get that done.  Interestingly, if he does make the team there, he will retain the Red-Black-White color scheme that we have gotten used to (Michigan Lutheran Seminary, Martin Luther College, Saginaw Valley State, and Concordia - Ann Arbor).

Nathanael, although he has one year of eligibility left, seems to be content to concentrate on studies and pursuing a career.  Below, you can see photos of Nathanael's final game (the ones where he is in the red uniform).  Concordia won big.

Concordia had one more game in which Nathanael could have played, but he took a hit on his knee which was originally diagnosed as an MCL sprain.  Although he finished the game, he was hobbled.  He figured he could have had a TD catch deep if he had full strength in that knee.  Anyway, his last catch, and the hit that did him in, are both posted below.

For many players, football ends at high school.  Nathanael got one more chance to play at Concordia, and we got to enjoy watching him play one more time.  He has enjoyed his share of success from the Novi Bobcats to the MLS Cardinals to the Concordia Cardinals.  I hope that he has good memories from all of these years.  I know that he will have better stories to tell his kids than I have.

This is Nathanael's last catch.

You can see Nathanael getting tackled and his knee taking the brunt of it.
This is the injury that has pretty much put an end to Nathanael's football career.

Football -- Catch Up edition

Football season has been chugging along, and so has every other part of life which is the reason I have fallen behind on the football coverage this fall.

On Sunday, October 9, Nathanael had a game vs. Heidelberg University of Tiffin, OH.  While the Concordia reserve squad started out strong against Heidelberg, Heidelberg got stronger in the 2nd half.  The result was a loss for the Cardinals of Concordia, 28-21.  Nathanael had some nice catches, though.

MLS JV at Pinconning (Thursday, October 13)
Since the game at Pinconning would have been a very long drive for us, and we likely would have shown up late, we did not make the trip.  Philip reported a 42-22 win for the Cardinals, though.  He also reported getting a sprained ankle--not during the game, but during the return trip from the locker room to the field at half time.  Add to that his concussion earlier this season during a pick-up game, and I think that Philip is safer on the field than off of it.

MLS Varsity vs. Pinconning (Friday, October 14)
We were told that this would be a hard-fought, nail-biter of a game.  Prognosticators from M-Live had predicted a win for the Pinconning Spartans, but the Cardinals came to play and they played hard.  The defense for MLS was stifling, limiting Pinconning to precious few yards all game.  In fact, going into the 4th quarter, MLS had not given up a first down, and going into the locker room at half time, they had held the Spartans to negative yardage.

In the meantime, MLS put up a lot of points.  The result was a 42-8 Cardinal win.

You can read M-Live articles about the game here, here, and here.

It was Parents' Night for the game vs. Pinconning.

Concordia vs. St. Francis (Indiana) (Saturday, October 15)
This game was a pretty forgetable game against the #4 team in the country.  St. Francis dominated the game from beginning to end, ending up with a 45-6 win, and looking very much like a top ten team.

Andrew was a good sport after the defeat and had his picture taken with Dan & Jeanette Schneider.

Football -- MLS vs. Ithaca; Also Concordia news

The Michigan Lutheran Seminary Cardinals faced the Yellowjackets of Ithaca last week.  The JV had a home game on Thursday, September 29, and the varsity traveled to a rain-soaked Ithaca stadium on Friday, September 30.  Ithaca has proven themselves to be a powerhouse program, and they produced victories at both contests.

Ithaca's JV team had some big players plowing the way for many TD runs.  They were very disciplined which resulted in a 48-7 victory.  With the MLS squad being predominantly freshmen, I hope that a full season of experience will get them better prepared and hungry for a better contest next year.  When I played high school ball, I was on the wrong end of many decisive victories, so I know the feeling the MLS JV had.  Keep your heads up, boys, you have many better years and games ahead of you!

The varsity game was a much tighter contest than the 17-6 final score would suggest.  Ithaca had problems mounting long drives all game, with the exception of one drive late in the game which resulted in a turnover deep in Cardinal territory.  All of Ithaca's points against MLS came on drives of 20 yards or shorter.  Two followed up turnovers, and the other followed a punt attempt where Casey Williams slipped on the soggy turf and MLS turned the ball over on downs somewhere near their own 10 yard line.  When you give a team a 10 yard field, it usually does not end well for you.  Despite all of that, MLS contained Ithaca to 17 points and shut them out in the 2nd half.

Caleb Heyn had a fantastic game running the ball, including a 70 yard (give or take) run on which he was tripped up one yard short of a TD.  MLS did punch that one in later.  Caleb also had 2 catches.

There are precious few photos.  Since it was so rainy, I wanted to keep the camera dry.  I did sneak out a few, though.

Concordia has been enjoying some good football this fall, putting up some solid games and one nail-biter last weekend that went into overtime.  Concordia pulled out the victory, 24-21.  Andrew had a TD catch (and a fantastic catch it was with a defender hanging all over him) earlier in the game.

For the first time in the history of the program (which has only been about 6 years now), Concordia is ranked in the top 25!  They enter the rankings at #23.  You can read about it and see the rankings at an article here.

In addition, the reserve players finally got a chance to play a game on Sunday, October 2.  Unfortunately, I was unable to attend.  Fortunately, Concordia won, 31-24 (I think).  Nathanael even scored the first TD of the game!  Go Cards!

Concordia Football at St. Ambrose

Andrew made the trip to Davenport, Iowa as Concordia began their season against the Fighting Bees of St. Ambrose.  It was not live-streamed, so we had to resort to listening to the radio broadcast and watching the "live" updates.  Those updates were a few minutes behind the broadcast.

At one point, we heard about a Concordia TD caught by "the receiver."  Then, after waiting patiently for the update, we got to see this:

Way to go, Andrew!  Concordia wins, 35-16.

For a game summary, you can look at Concordia's web page here.