On Saturday March 21, Akron will play host to Kent State, Bowling Green, and Baldwin Wallace in this season’s addition of the Ohio Dodgeball Cup (ODC). This will also be the last regular season tournament for the 2014-15 season along with the CMU Showdown which takes place the same day.
There will certainly be a few storylines to follow at this tournament. First of all, it is great to see that Akron (a first year member of the NCDA) will be hosting an event. Hopefully they do a great job hosting and it is the start of a trend for them as an up and coming team in the league.
Another interesting storyline will be how well Baldwin Wallace does as a new team playing in their first ever tournament. Will they compete well? Will they win any games this weekend? We will find all of this out on March 21st.
Kent State will enter the tournament as the likely favorite, and I am eager to see how well they compete, as they prepare for Nationals. Kent will likely win out at this tourney, but will they be prepared for Nationals after this weekend?
Bowling Green had a positive performance at the Kentucky Invitational back in January. It will be interesting to see if BGSU can keep that momentum going as they play in the ODC. BGSU has a good balance of veteran players and talented rookies, they will be looking to not just win a few games, but possibly upset the favorite: Kent State.
All in all, this year’s ODC will be unique. Two new NCDA schools will join two NCDA mainstays in tournament that will give us a bit of a preview of the Ohio region (minus Ohio State) for Nationals. The schedule of games for this tournament are as follows:
Schedule:
10:00 AM:
BG vs. Kent – Court 4
Akron vs. BW – Court 5
11:15 AM:
BG vs BW – Court 4
Akron vs. Kent – Court 5
BREAK
1:00 PM:
Kent vs. BW – Court 4
Akron vs. BG – Court 5