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September 2022 ROTM – Nick Kemer

Since September 2019, the NCDA has been recognizing rookie players that make a statement on the court through their skills, leadership, and ability to mobilize a team. After a phenomenal performance at the Buckeye Showcase on September 18th, the first Rookie of the Month this season goes to Nick Kemer from Ohio State. Nick wowed teammates and spectators with full-body throws, game-changing catches, and league sportsmanship. Kathryn Mays took some time to interview this rising player; take a look at the interview below:

JBBB3 Preview

Introduction

Ohio University is hosting one of the largest tournaments that we will see in most fall semesters to come – the 3^rd Annual John Betters Bobcat Bonanza! This club will play host to nine other teams that will make the trip to Athens, OH and try and earn themselves a few wins on the weekend. Will the Bobcats continue their hot streak on their home turf? Will Michigan State continue the dominance it started last year by knocking of Cincinnati and Ohio in their own state? To answer those questions, let’s take a look into the schools taking the trip to the beautiful campus.

Buckeye Showcase Recap

There’s never a dull weekend in Columbus. Last Sunday’s Buckeye Showcase proved to be the most exhilarating season opener yet (and arguably the most exciting thing to happen in Columbus that weekend). Ohio State hosted 5 schools for the third annual Buckeye Showcase, and my oh my, what a day of close matches. Obviously, teams can change a lot between the start of the season and Nationals, but if these teams continue to play like they did at the Showcase, the Ohio Region very well could claim the National Title this season.

If you weren’t at this event, the above claim probably doesn’t hold a lot of weight – there’s a lot to unpack. Let’s go team by team to evaluate what we saw and speculate the future of these teams.

Buckeye Showcase

Buckeye Showcase Preview

Sunday marks the first big tournament of the college dodgeball season! The 3rd Annual Buckeye Showcase will feature five Ohio schools itching to be recognized as the state’s top ranked team. Although we are less than a month into the season, we are anticipating close matches and new rivalries; the Ohio teams continue to narrate the college dodgeball scene.

So who do we need to look out for? Whose match predictions will prove true? Which rookies should we keep an eye on as the season progresses? And how will these teams perform against their current standings?

Top Rookie Classes of 2021-2022

As we look to the start of another new NCDA Season and teams begin recruiting their next captains or future All-Americans we thought it would be fun to take a look back at last year’s top rookie classes.

Several teams across the league brought in multiple impact players which speaks to the depth and resiliency we are seeing across the league in the first full year back post-COVID.

Here are the top 5 Rookie Classes of 2021-22:

2022 Women’s All-American Team

The 2022 NCDA season was always going to be one with a lot of mystery heading into the year. With a significant hiatus away from the court, questions about which teams and players would step up and push their way to the top remained at large until finally everything came together with a fantastic showing at this year’s Nationals. Since 2017, the NCDA has honored the female competitors who have dedicated time and effort to their craft. These women erased all the doubt, the mystery, and questions through their excellent play and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt they were some of the best athletes college dodgeball had to offer. This list recognizes both the athletic achievements and amazing leadership these women have brought to their respective clubs.

– Hunter Ford, NCDA President

Ohio State Buckeyes Pre-Nationals Spotlight

Leading into Nationals, we look to spotlight as many teams as we can in hopes of shining a bright light on standouts from participating teams. These glow-ups include up to 2 of each team’s standout rookies as well as a handful of core contributing players that have gotten their respective team to where they are going into the National Collegiate Dodgeball Association’s annual finale. Lastly, we get a glance into each participating team’s mindset and expectations going into Nationals.

Comparing Resumes of the NCDA’s Top 5

The following article was prepared by Kevin Bailey, Wes Peters, and Kathryn Mays.

With the March 2022 Power Rankings just released, the top 5 teams in the NCDA deserve a deeper dive. It seems at this point in the season, the top 5 teams in the league have separated themselves a bit from the rest of the pack.

With Cincinnati winning the Ohio Dodgeball Cup, Michigan State winning the Michigan Dodgeball Cup, James Madison putting the hammer down on the rest of the East Coast, Grand Valley State boasting a 13-2 overall record, and Ohio State chugging along as a title contender and up to #3 in the Gonzalez standings, these 5 teams all have had stellar campaigns thus far.

Let’s take a closer look at each team’s resume to get a better understanding of where each squad stands heading into the final month of the collegiate dodgeball season! We will cover these teams in the order in which they were ranked in the March 2022 PR:

The War V Recap

We expected a weekend full of quality dodgeball as Akron hosted their 5th annual iteration of The War. What we witnessed, however, was frankly a lot of lopsided matches. Certain teams we anticipated to have great performances came in as advertised. Others left a lot to be desired, and will hope to bounce back strong if they play again before Nationals, or else they will be chewing on those hard truths about the way their team played for the next 5 weeks.

With that being said, there is a lot to unwrap, and a lot to be said about what we saw from each team, whether they performed well, poorly, or somewhere in between. Let’s go team by team and evaluate what we saw.

Baller of the Month December 2021: Derrek Kemper

The long wait is over! Derrek Kemper of THE Ohio State University is your Baller of the Month for December. The Rookie sensation for the Buckeyes is a Power house thrower, and already has the catching ability and court awareness of a multi-year veteran. Derrek has proven himself to be a huge asset to the talented Buckeye roster thus far. We talked all things Dodgeball, including his go-to tournament meals!

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Ohio Dodgeball Cup

Previewing the 2022 Ohio Dodgeball Cup

For the first time in two years, the Ohio Dodgeball Cup will be played this Saturday, February 5th, on Bowling Green State University’s campus. There will be five teams in attendance on the fifth; Akron, Bowling Green State, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Ohio State – all vying for a chance to take home the hardware Saturday afternoon. This could work out to be a great opportunity for those around the league to understand who the true top team in Ohio is this season. Or, we could be left with even more parity than we ended the fall semester with. Regardless, only one team can take the Cup home, and all five want it.

We asked each of the five teams what they think of their matchups this weekend, if they are bringing any young/lesser-known players they feel could be poised to make an impact, and how significant they felt winning the Ohio Dodgeball Cup would be for each of their programs. Here’s what they had to say:

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Cincinnati Super Smackdown Tournament Review

This year, the league is witnessing arguably some of the most balanced skill sets within the top 8 teams that it has ever seen. In a neck and neck dogfight for the top spot in the rankings, there has been quite some uncertainty on where to predict the final standings for each team. With 4 of these top 8 teams competing in this tournament, we were hoping to clear some of that uncertainty, but all we got was more of it.

Each Ohio team, coming off of their own respective dominant performances, was surely excited to play a hot MSU, who just celebrated a huge technical upset over GVSU. Mixed into these matchups are both UK and WMU, both competing in their season inducting tournament. As the league eagerly looked for the results of this tournament to shine some clarity on the true hierarchy of the league, the results this day struck an existential blow to the concept of clarity: Akron defeated MSU, MSU defeated OSU, OSU defeated UC, and UC defeated Akron and MSU. What do we take away from this? Are any of these teams the technical winner? The transitive property rests in an infinite loop, so we asked each team to give us their thoughts on each matchup to help us debug these results.