{"id":345,"date":"2012-09-27T04:39:11","date_gmt":"2012-09-27T04:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/msu\/?p=345"},"modified":"2012-09-27T04:39:11","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T04:39:11","slug":"new-rookie-class-looking-strong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/msu\/2012\/09\/27\/new-rookie-class-looking-strong\/","title":{"rendered":"New Rookie Class Looking Strong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A new group of Spartan Dodgeballers has joined the Michigan State Club Dodgeball Team, and this could be the best class since the 2009-2010 class. With a ton of diverse players coming together, it&#8217;s a unique class with a wide array of talents to help the team out. The class includes some power throwers, some pure catchers, some blockers, and a few people who can do a little bit of everything. There&#8217;s also a wide age range, with some seniors to go along with mostly freshmen and sophomores.<\/p>\n<p>The players have all come from different dodgeballing backgrounds as well. Sophomore Tim Leszczynski played with the team towards the end of the season last year, and freshman Colin O&#8217;Brien says &#8220;I&#8217;ve played dodgeball every summer at my camp where I was a camper and now am a counselor as well as my high school had two dodgeball tournaments a year which were my favorite Fridays of the year.&#8221; Freshman Alex Starbird says that he wanted to play dodgeball because &#8220;It&#8217;s something different that not many other people get to play.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The players have all loved it so far as well, with O&#8217;Brien saying &#8220;It&#8217;s been great thus far. The level of competition is great and forces me to improve every practice.&#8221; Starbird adds &#8220;I&#8217;ve really enjoyed playing so far, each practice has been a lot of fun.&#8221; The rookies are all getting better as well, as Starbird says &#8220;I feel like I have gotten better in the first couple weeks because I now know that there is strategy to the game and it&#8217;s not just a free for all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But the season is just beginning, and some of the players already are excited for later events. &#8220;I&#8217;m really looking forward to the first tournament and getting out there in a real game where playing as a team and winning really matters&#8221; states O&#8217;Brien.<\/p>\n<p>Assistant Captain Kevin Miller feels like this is a good group of rookies. &#8220;The rookies have been showing a lot of promise this year. They are working well as a team and play a fearless game. There is a lot of good talent in this group. The returning players from last year will need to play hard if they want to stay on the varsity roster.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>With this recruiting class, the Spartans could make a good run towards both the Michigan Dodgeball Cup title and National Championship if they continue to improve, not just this year but also in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new group of Spartan Dodgeballers has joined the Michigan State Club Dodgeball Team, and this could be the best class since the 2009-2010 class. With a ton of diverse players coming together, it&#8217;s a unique class with a wide &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/msu\/2012\/09\/27\/new-rookie-class-looking-strong\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2012-2013","category-msu","category-recruiting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":347,"href":"http:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions\/347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/msu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}