In Ian Childs’ first year as head captain of the Spartans, Michigan State would make it’s biggest leap yet into the dodgeball elite. Helped by assistant captains Cameron Massimino and Joe Marotta, and aided by an amazing recruiting class, the Spartans would make it to the Final Four at Nationals, beat Saginaw Valley at the Michigan Dodgeball Cup, and prove to be a great team. This may be the deepest, best team in the history of Spartan dodgeball, with seniors like Jon Rengering, Jarrett Smith, Andrea Mason, and Joe Marotta, and the best recruiting class yet with rookies like Andy Malnor, Eric Paul, Alex Acton, Zach Bauer, and Kevin Miller. That recruiting class would bring four future All-Stars, three future captains, and help usher the Spartans into a new age.

With great camaraderie, good teamwork, and skillful players, the Spartans became one of the most dangerous teams to play in the league. Ian Childs’ strategies were great, and the Spartans would go on to beat teams they were supposed to beat, upset some teams like Saginaw, and finally were able to hang around with Grand Valley.

Michigan State had new uniforms for the 2009-2010 season, once again made by Patagonia. They were grey, and similar to the previous season’s uniforms.

The Spartans began the season with a scrimmage against CMU, who they had two devastating defeats against the past season, and then followed it up with two tournaments in November- at Bowling Green and hosting the first MSU Invite in years. They would be successful in both tournaments, despite losing to SVSU and GVSU again, and then they traveled to the Cardinal Gym for a battle with SVSU. The Cards squeaked out a victory there, but despite the loss the Spartans felt confident about how they played. With a trip to OSU up next, the State began to look like a title contender thanks to their new pieces they added via recruiting and the growth of some of their veteran players. At the OSU Invite, Michigan State would face GVSU and Miami (OH) and go 1-1, losing to the Lakers but beating the Redhawks. This left them with two tournaments for the rest of the season: the 2010 Michigan Dodgeball Cup in East Lansing, and Nationals 2010 at Bowling Green. While the Spartans would lose to CMU 3-2 again at the MDC, they did knock off the Saginaw Valley State Cardinals for the first time in program history, which is one of the biggest wins in school history. At Nationals 2010 the Spartans would be put into pool play with GVSU, Western Kentucky, and Depaul. They went 2-1, losing to GVSU but beating WKU and Depaul handily, and that would set them up for at match against Western Illinois the next day. The Spartans, who had a bye in the first round, handed the Leathernecks a defeat in the first round of the tournament, which was the first of many matches the two teams have played over the past three seasons, and then would face CMU in the Final Four. State would lose by one to the Chips, but once again it was a tough match for both sides. This season really established MSU as an elite program in the modern NCDA.

2009-2010 Captain Ian Childs said of the team “2009-2010 was a huge turn around for us. We went from an under-achieving team to making the Final 4 at Nationals. Although it wasn’t the most talented team MSU has ever had, it was probably the most in sync our team has ever been on the court. That season paved the way for 2010-2011 which was probably the best season out team has had.”