WIU Club Dodgeball Team To Play for National Title Saturday – Sunday

WIU.edu – Jodi Pospeschil

MACOMB, IL – An emerging club sport at Western Illinois University is training its members to avoid being struck by a 76 mph rubber fastball.

Western’s club dodgeball team will try for its first-ever national collegiate title during a tournament in Saginaw, MI, Saturday-Sunday, April 14-15. Sixteen teams from across the country will compete in pool play April 14 to be ranked for the single-elimination championship matches April 15.

This is the third year the Western dodgeball team has played in the National College Dodgeball Association tournament, finishing fourth each of the first two years. The team has about 25 members, 15 of which will travel to the Michigan tournament.

The club was founded by WIU senior Tim Wohead, of Plainfield, who is also the club’s former president.

“In high school I loved dodgeball,” Wohead said. “When I got to Western my buddy learned that there was a national association so we signed up and it has grown from there. Our practices started on the Rec Center’s racquetball courts.”

Club President Dalton Servatius, a junior from Lombard, joined the club after seeing the team practice in the Donald R. Spencer Student Recreation Center.

Western’s team has lost to Michigan State University during both of its previous national tourney efforts.

The goal of the games is to strike the opposing teams’ players with a large rubber ball. The tournament games consist of two 25-minute sessions.

To follow the WIU team’s weekend progress, visit facebook.com/groups/152010705468/.

Posted By: Jodi Pospeschil, University Relations
Phone: (309) 298-1993 * Fax: (309) 298-1606

WIU Round Robin

MACOMB – DePaul Dodgeball joined Western Kentucky and Wisconsin Platteville for a Round Robin hosted by Western Illinois on October 23.

This week was a monster for DePaul. In preparing for our matches we had to weed 17 people of our 40 plus regular ballers. The greater majority of our veterans have been injured in non dodgeball related injuries, while others had work and all the right excuses. Then on the Wednesday before, one of our drivers texted us and said he broke his collarbone. By our Thursday dodgeball night, we had barely enough car space for 14 players, bringing just five people with tournament experience. And I got my neighbor’s bike was stolen on Tuesday.

We received our club shirts just a week before travel, and with no free time I managed to heat-press the traveling shirts so we might look like a team. Kevin Hill managed to get the waivers in, and I managed to take two of my cars to fill the space left by our other driver’s injury.

We ended up leaving only 15 minutes late, a small record for DePaul Dodgeball.  But after 60 minutes of driving in the rain, Kevin’s car suffered a blown out tire near Ottawa, IL. He had to wait more than two hours for a new tire to be installed. In the mean time, 8 members of the team continued onto Western. By this time, Western and the rest of the teams had already started playing. We made a small pit stop, and the Chicago Eight decided to keep going as we were more than half-way there.

Arriving an hour or two late, DePaul is forced to play three matches in a row, with only 8 people for the first match. Fortunately, UWP was awesome and really fun to play since they had only brought 11 people. For these 8 person matches, only Kuncklepuck [#54] and myself had any past tournament experience; the rest of our team were  By the time I got out of the car after that forever stretch of road that is Route 34, I didn’t care what really happened.  I wasn’t going to think about the crap week I just had, I wasn’t going to think about the five hour drive in my really small car, I wasn’t going to worry about the shot clock. I just wanted to run around and be really, really loud. And this is what I did.

By our second half with Western Kentucky, reinforcements show up from Kevin Hill’s car, WKU pulls out the crowns, and we continue to have a really fun game. Trick shots, gladiator dodgeball, and pulling an Iron Curtain keeps everyone happy.  Our rookie players really got into our cheers, and it seemed like we had a lot of catches. I believe DePaul definitely had the most fun out of anybody in Macomb.

For the later half of our match with WIU, some of the younger players started getting a little frustrated with how serious WIU was taking the game. I think this might have been part the team being tired from traveling for 5 hours and then playing three straight hours. Another part was the majority of WIU taking dodgeball against DePaul way to serious for the entirety duration of the match. But then again, the majority of DePaul didn’t let it faze them. No matter what they are going to play dodgeball their way, and I’m really proud of the way the team played that whole day.

Since not enough people wanted to stay the night, we decided to hit up Walmart to take advantage of cheaper taxes for the hanging out at home. Then the team had a quick family dinner at Wendy’s before driving home under a full moon. We even managed to stay under budget if you don’t count Kevin’s blown tire.

500 pictures and 500 miles later, DePaul Dodgeball remains undefeated.

2010-11 Season Preview

WIU’s Tim Wohead

1. How many players are returning for your team?
We are only losing two players- Tina Miller and Any Janota- due to graduation. Also for Nationals this year one of our last year’s captains, Paul V., will be studying abroad and possibly won’t attend.

2. What strengths/weaknesses do you anticipate going into the season?
A big strength we have is that we are attracting a lot of incoming freshman and recruiting big arms who have heard of our club now. Our only weakness is financial and being able to travel to all the schools we want to this year. But if there’s a will, there’s a way.

3. What are the areas you’ll look to improve when scouting new players?
You can never have too many big arms on your team but we would also like a couple players that can catch just about anything. And good footwork and agility is a must.

4. What are you goals for this season?
National Champions

5. Why should other teams be scared to play you?
We went to Nationals with one match under our belt. We didn’t start pinching or being strategic until a week before Nationals and we still held the 4th seed after the first day of tournament play. Needless to say with most of our players returning and bringing in better athletes, we are going to be more dangerous.

6. Which teams would you like to play?
We get along well with SVSU so that would be one of them. We would also like to face Michigan State just because we got knocked out by them and I feel that we played like crap and would enjoy a little revenge along with BGSU. Lastly, we would be interested in taking on CMU.

KSU’s co-captain Kyle FitzPatrick

1. How many players are returning for your team?
Definitely lost 2 of our Vets (catchers at that). But overall were a really young team. We just need people to have the time / money to travel.

2. What strengths/weaknesses do you anticipate going into the season?

Strength: Our teams is no longer 70% rookies, and I believe we will be underestimated. Also I have a better grasp of how to manage a team.

Weakness: Money, we may lack some raw athleticism unlike other teams (cough cough GVSU, CMU)

3. What are the areas you’ll look to improve when scouting new players?

We hope to be more active in the scouting procedure. We might try scouting out some middle school dodgeball games for a feeder program.

4. What are you goals for this season?
Having fun, getting new players and improving current players, getting something in the win column. Hopefully attend more tournaments. (Maybe even try to host one.)

5. Why should other teams be scared to play you?
Because you might have fun doing it. Also, we have a unique strategy since even we don’t know what were doing most ofthe time.

6. Which teams would you like to play?
Hopefully we play as many teams as possible. I would like to see more of the native Ohio teams this year since we only played BG, OSU and half of Miami once last year. WIU & NSU were fun, competitive new teams I would like to play again. I personally have never played WPU, EMU, CMU and DePaul. Saginaw (meaning Stein) has already issued a challenge to Kent on the forum. GVSU as long as I don’t fracture me wrist again. Finally, MSU and WKU are always welcomed opponents.

DePaul’s Zigmas Maloni

DePaul Dodgeball will be returning for the start of the dodgeball season with its usual vengeance, and by vengeance we mean beating up on the random freshmen who don’t know how to keep their eyes open.

We’ve lost a handful of our “competitive” roster, but one of the most notable losses has been the graduation of Jack Young. As the face of the team in the league’s eyes, “Jack Attack” has become a herald and guardian of that DePaul Dodgeball decorum. So I’m sure he will be missed.

DePaul’s plans for this season include our normal thing – playing as much dodgeball as our bodies can handle. We have hour and a half practices twice a week, but we invite anyone to play without commitment. We play the game as our childish forbearers did. Our games are a juvenile program of delinquency, where the headshot hug rule substantiates our collegiate goals and ambitions.

In other news, DePaul also plans to do more this season than just throw balls at its own team. We are looking to host matches against other teams, as well as travelling to play nice at other schools.

We are kicking off this commitment by hosting our own tournament on October 2nd, 2010. The Chicago Hat Invitational will mix up the teams and hopefully foster some good times to be had. Any teams looking to participate should check out the NCDA forum and/or aggravate their respective captains.

At the last, we would like to keep up our reputation of playing a really fun game of dodgeball. If there is anything to be said about DePaul Dodgeball, it is that we will always be able to entertain ourselves.