Concordia-St. Paul Athletic Hall of Fame
Concordia-St. Paul volleyball’s first-ever AVCA All-American, Tia (Lindberg) Schlundt, BA ’05, MBA ’14, was a key piece in the Golden Bears’ rise to power in the early 2000’s. The Forest Lake, Minnesota native helped the team reach its first two NCAA Tournaments, including a national runner-up finish in the 2003 season.
After spending a year as an All-NSIC performer at MSU Moorhead, Schlundt joined CSP and saw the team undergo a dramatic 10-win turnaround in her first season on campus before making another eight-win improvement to make the leap to national prominence. In her three years on the squad, Concordia registered an 88-16 overall record and a 42-6 record in NSIC play as they claimed a pair of NSIC championships, the first two in a stretch of 11 in a row.
One of the most dominant players of the early days of the DII era at CSP, Schlundt ended her career third in kills with 1,456 and second in total blocks with 402 in program history and still ranks seventh in both today. Her 3.99 points per set rank ninth and her 3.24 kills per set rank 12th in program history. Her 2003 selection to the AVCA All-America Second Team set the tone for a run of 18 consecutive years that the Golden Bears have had at least one AVCA All-America pick, a streak still alive today. She followed it up with a second-straight All-America Second Team pick in her senior season in 2004.
In her first year on campus in 2002, Schlundt stepped right into a starting role to finish second in the NSIC and 20th in the nation with a .374 hitting percentage while also ranking seventh in blocks per set (0.98) and eighth in kills per set (3.09) to earn All-NSIC honorable mention honors. Joining a team that finished the previous season with a 14-16 record, she helped the team to a mark of 24-9 and their first ever region ranking, finishing at seventh in the North Central Region.
Schlundt and the Golden Bears carried that momentum into the 2003 season, putting together a dominant 32-4 record, including a 15-1 record in league play to claim the NSIC title for the first time, as they rode the wave all the way to the national title match in their first taste of NCAA postseason play. Schlundt finished inside the top-10 in blocks per set (third with 1.14), hitting percentage (seventh with .263) and kills per set (10th with 3.09) for the second year in a row to garner national recognition with her first of two All-America selections.
Her senior season proved to be another strong one as the team reached the NCAA Sweet Sixteen while claiming their second NSIC championship in a row, finishing with a 32-3 overall record and a perfect 14-0 record in NSIC action. Concordia’s dominant defensive presence in the middle played a major role in the team’s success as Schlundt and fellow CSP Athletic Hall of Fame pick Joy (Wubben) Tietz, BA ’05, put up the top two single-season efforts in blocks per set (Schlundt with 1.38 and Tietz with 1.42) in school history.
After earning her degree in biology, she returned to Concordia as a professional and earned a master’s of business administration in 2014. Schlundt spent the past 13 years working for Medtronic in various roles. She currently holds the position of Senior Program Manager for Global Supply Chain.
She married former CSP baseball standout David Schlundt, BA ‘04, and the couple have two children, Brodie and Rena. They recently purchased a 120 year old farm house in Grant, Minnesota.
