RIPON – After putting together an impactful varsity career for the Ripon Christian Knights, senior twins Jordan and Jared Goslinga have inked a commitment to become full-time student-athletes for the Dordt College mens basketball program in Sioux Center, Iowa.
The Ripon Christian standouts will join a Dordt program that just saw its NAIA National Tournament run end with a quarterfinal loss. The Defenders will welcome the 6-5, 250-pound Jordan Goslinga, who is coming off back-to-back All-Southern League honors.
“Jordan has been instrumental in Ripon Christian’s success this season,” Dordt head coach Ross Douma said. “He understands how to play and does many things to make his team better.
“He has a great work ethic and will make those around him better.”
Jared, like Jordan, carries a loft 4.0 grade point average and will study nursing at the college that competes in the Great Plains Athletic Conference. Jared also nabbed All-Southern League honors and Dordt won the GPAC title this season with a 17-3 conference mark. The Defenders were 30-5 over the entire season.
“Jared is a long wing player who had a strong senior season,” Douma said. “His improvement from a year ago has been significant and we believe he will continue along that trek.
“Jared is a great fit for Dordt College and we’re looking forward to having him join our program.”
The brothers are following in the footsteps of older brother Tyler Goslinga, who continued his education at Fresno Pacific. Both had aspirations early on to continue into the collegiate ranks and made it a realization over the past two seasons.
“At the beginning of last year, after seeing Tyler sign, that became a big influence for me,” Jared Goslinga said. “Knowing that I wanted to go study and continue my education was big. Once I realized it was actually an opportunity that I could play basketball it made me work harder to get to that next level.”
With consecutive Southern League championships leading to back-to-back Sac-Joaquin Section postseason berths, the Goslinga’s are starting over. Now they debut in a program that, like Ripon Christian, takes winning seriously.
“It’s just going to be about getting used to the program,” Jordan Goslinga said. “They had a great year this season making it to the NAIA elite eight, so it will be about getting there and just finding your role.
“I’m going to show up, work hard and see where things go.”
The Goslinga twins continue a long list of Ripon Christian athletes that continue on to the collegiate ranks. The hard work and dedication is substantiated when the end result is an athletic scholarship to assist in furthering an education.
“I think this embodies everything we do here at the school,” Ripon Christian athletic director Joe Daretta said. “Because it doesn’t happen just while they’re here at high school, those guys have been here since kindergarten. So kids are seeing that if they work they can come out of nowhere athletically.
“These guys are exactly what we do and I am extremely proud of them.”
