Northwestern College to honor former athletes

Three Northwestern College graduates who earned All-American honors will be inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame on Saturday, Oct. 1. The honorees, along with the 2016–17 Red Raider Club Coach of the Year and Barnabas Award recipients, will be recognized at a luncheon at 11 a.m. in the Vermeer South Dining Room and at halftime of the football game against Hastings, which starts at 1:30 p.m.

Dr. Kaitlin (Beaver) Hoogeveen of Iowa City; Becca (Hurley) Kramer of Des Moines; and Luke Vermeer of Sioux Center will bring the number of Hall of Famers to 110. Josh Bolluyt of Spirit Lake, Sara Friedrichsen of Boyden and Travis Kooima of Hull will receive Red Raider Club Coach of the Year honors. Dr. Lance Wulf of West Salem, Wis., will receive the Barnabas Award, which is bestowed upon Raiders who encouraged others to strive for their best performance athletically, academically and personally, and who used their sport as a way to bring others to a knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Hoogeveen, a 2011 Northwestern graduate, earned NAIA All-American third team honors in volleyball in 2008 and was a first-team All-American in 2009 and 2010. A two-time NAIA Scholar-Athlete, she was also a first team all-GPAC player and a member of the national all-tournament team as a freshman. She is Northwestern’s all-time leader in assists with 4,162; is second in career service aces with 215; is eighth in block assists with 256; ranks ninth in both total blocks, 297, and digs, 1,194; and is 10th in career kills with 888. Also a high jumper, she qualified for the indoor and outdoor national track and field meets as a freshman.

A 2007 graduate of Sioux Center High School, Hoogeveen earned her dental degree from the University of Iowa in 2015 and is a pediatric dentistry resident.

Kramer, who also graduated from Northwestern in 2011, was a three-time first team All-American in basketball and was named the National Player of the Year as a senior. She set a school record for most steals in a season, 102, in 2010–11 and ranks second in career steals with 281; third in career assists, 534; and fourth in scoring, 2,315. The team MVP her last three years, she helped lead the Raiders to NAIA Div. II national championships in 2008, 2010 and 2011. Kramer also played women’s soccer for Northwestern in 2008 and earned honorable mention all-conference recognition.

A 2007 home-schooled high school graduate who played for Des Moines East High School, Kramer works part time at Joshua Christian Academy in Des Moines and coaches at Des Moines East.

Vermeer, a 2010 alumnus, was named a second team All-American in golf as a senior. He was the GPAC Golfer of the Year that year as well as in 2008, and he earned first team all-conference honors in 2008, 2009 and 2010. The three-time team MVP is tied for first in career scoring average in Northwestern’s record books with an average of 75.26. He recorded the fourth-best season average in school history with a 74.40 in 2009–10. Vermeer tied for 26th at the national golf meet in 2010, the best-ever performance by a Red Raider.

Vermeer graduated from Sioux Center High School in 2006 and is now a real estate/consumer loan officer at American State Bank.

Bolluyt, who graduated from Northwestern in 1999, led the Spirit Lake High School football team to a 14-0 record and the Class 2A state title last year. Heading into this season, his Indian teams had compiled a record of 69-23 in eight years. He was named the state’s 2A Coach of the Year in 2012 and the Sioux City Journal’s Coach of the Year in 2011. Before becoming Spirit Lake’s coach, he was an assistant at Northwestern for nine years.

A 1995 graduate of Spirit Lake High School, Bolluyt teaches physical education at his alma mater. 

Friedrichsen, a 2002 Northwestern graduate who was an All-American in basketball and an all-conference player in softball, has been head softball coach at Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley for 10 years. The 2016 squad finished 29-6, placing fourth in the Class 3A state tournament and winning a share of the Siouxland Conference title. The 2015 team placed seventh at the state tourney. Her teams have won five consecutive conference titles and six in the last seven years; their overall record under her leadership is 203-85.

Friedrichsen, a 1998 graduate of Galva-Holstein High School, is a secondary math teacher and technology integrationist at Boyden-Hull.

Kooima, a 2005 Northwestern graduate who earned all-GPAC honors in football, led the Western Christian High School football team to an 11-3 record last year. The Wolfpack finished as runners-up in Class 1A and Kooima was named the Iowa Football Coaches Association’s Coach of the Year. In his 10 years at Western, Kooima’s teams have compiled a 56-49 record.

A 2000 graduate of Rock Valley High School, Kooima also teaches business at Western Christian.

Wulf, who graduated from Northwestern in 2001, was a safety on the Red Raider football team and an outfielder in baseball. He earned GPAC second team all-conference honors in football in 2000. A 1997 graduate of West Lyon High School, he graduated from Northwestern Health Sciences University and is a chiropractor.

The public is invited to attend the luncheon. Tickets are $10 apiece. For more information, contact Kara Smit in Northwestern’s athletic department, 712-707-7280 or kara.smit@nwciowa.edu.