Erik Zander

Voices of the NCDA: Joel Luciano

Joel Luciano is a former player for DePaul Dodgeball Society is currently finishing up his masters degree at DePaul University. Below he will describe how he got here and his experience in the league.

Voices of the NCDA: Joseph Perez

In the next article in our series, Leon Rockamore interviews Joseph Perez. Let’s take a look at the interview and see what he has to say.

Leon: Where are you from? How old are you? What team do/did you play for?
Joseph: My name is Joseph Perez. I am a 21-year-old from Charleston, IL and I am currently attending Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

L: What was your first experience with dodgeball?
J: My first experience with dodgeball was when a TA I had for one of my Biology classes kept bugging our class about joining so I said that I would go to the club meeting that night and I have been going ever since.

NCDA Among Us Tournament

The NCDA will be hosting another online video game tournament to raise money for the organization’s Recruitment and Retention Fund. This online tournament will feature Among Us. The tournament will be held on January 23 and registration is due by January 21, at 11:59p.m. eastern time.

NCDA Call of Duty Tournament

The NCDA will be hosting another online tournament to raise money that will help jump start the organization’s first officiating fund. Our goal for this fund is to be able to pay for referees not just at Nationals, but other tournaments too. This online tournament will feature Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Gunfight mode). The tournament will be held on October 24 and registration is due by October 11, at 11:59p.m. eastern time.

A special thanks to Caleb Frank (social media specialist) for creating and designing the flyer.

Rocket League Fundraiser

On August 8, the NCDA teamed up with the Dodgeball Club at UW-Platteville to host the league’s first ever Rocket League tournament. Rocket League is a fast-paced, exciting online video game featuring remote control cars with special abilities whose goal is to push a larger-than-life soccer ball into the opponent’s net as many times as possible in a given time limit. This event raised money to go towards the Tim Ebert Memorial Scholarship, which goes to help the NCDA’s internship program. The goal of the event was to raise $500 and I’m excited to announce that we raised over $750 through entry fees and donations.

The NCDA teamed up with current players: JT Warren (UWP), Jacob Sebranek (UWP),Caleb Frank (CMU & NCDA intern) and myself to host this competition. This tournament consisted of 9 teams that went head to head to be crowned champions. We started with a round robin tournament followed by a double elimination bracket, and the games were live-streamed for everyone to be a part of the experience. Teams consisted of current and former players from the league. Some of these schools included: UWP, VCU, and WKU. In the end, a team from WKU took home the title as the NCDA’s first ever rocket league champions. There was no one more excited about this than Felix Perrone (WKU alumni). As his response to the victory of his former teammates was, “WKU wins their first championship tonight”! A very much deserved win for sure!

NCDA Scholarship Fundraiser

This year the Platteville Dodgeball Club will be hosting an online tournament to raise money for the Tim Ebert Memorial Scholarship. With all the uncertainty going on, Platteville wanted to ensure that they could continue to help the NCDA with their internship program. For this year’s fundraiser, the Platteville Dodgeball Club will be putting on a Rocket League tournament. The tournament will be held August 8-9. Registration is due by July 26th, at 11:59p.m eastern time.

A special thanks to Caleb Frank for creating and designing this flyer.

2020 All-Midway Conference Team

The 2019-2020 season comes to an end and it is time to announce the Midway Conference All-Region team. Our Midway Conference consists of: University of Nebraska Lincoln (UNL), DePaul University, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, (SIUE), Ball State University (BSU) and the University of Wisconsin Platteville (UWP). This list consists of the top 12 in the conference, voted on by their peers. A special thanks to the players that helped me out with this. Let’s take a look at the results and see who impressed this year!

Internship Program 2020

The NCDA is always looking to improve and provide a better dodgeball experience for the league. In part, that is why we started an internship program, to allow for new ideas to be developed and grow the league. We are proud to announce that we are offering two internships starting in June and running to the end of August. Upon completion, they will receive the Tim Ebert Memorial Scholarship for their work. The two positions will be the Social Media Specialist and Recruitment & Retention Coordinator. Below are the two candidates and what they will be working on for the league.

Zanderthon Throw-Down 5 Recap

Last Saturday, marked another successful Zanderthon Throw-Down. The teams showed up and came to compete. The talent on these teams is better than every and they will be able to show it off in just over a month’s time. Here are the scores from the weekend.

Zanderthon Throw-Down

This weekend mark’s the fifth Zanderthon Throw-Down in its history. One of the best tournaments of the year and one that the Midway conference looks forward to the most. The teams in attendance will be University of Nebraska Lincoln (UNL), Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), the University of Wisconsin Platteville (UWP), and UWP alumni. Let’s take a look at the schedule for the day!

The Viking Cup Recap

At the Viking Cup, several teams went head to head for some quality matches to prepare for nationals. Several of the games were close and tested teams’ ability to fight and go for the win. Below are the scores for the day and captain’s thoughts on the teams in attendance.

Match	Score	Winner
SVSU vs UWP	2-1	SVSU
WMU vs BSU	5-3	WMU
CSU vs SVSU	3-2	CSU
CSU vs UWP	4-3	CSU
UWP vs BSU	7-1	UWP
SVSU vs UK	5-2	SVSU
WMU vs UK	5-2	WMU
UK vs BSU	6-4	UK
CSU vs WMU	Forfeit	CSU

The Viking Cup

On February 22, 2020, we have a great mix of teams attending the Viking Cup that should make for some fun matches. There are two teams from the Michigan and Midway regions, and one each from the South and Ohio regions. The teams in attendance will be: Cleveland State University (CSU), Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU), Western Michigan University (WMU), Ball State University (BSU), University of Kentucky (UK), and the University of Wisconsin Platteville (UWP). Let’s take a look at the schedule (games will be played at the CSU Rec Center).

NCDA Internship Program Continues

The NCDA believes in the development of our student-athletes’ education and is proud to announce that we will be able to continue our Internship Program. The NCDA offered an internship last year and was able to develop a startup guide for new and current teams (Startup Guide). As part of the completing the internship and meeting our expectations, the NCDA was able to offer a scholarship to that intern for their work.

Pioneer Invitational Recap

At the Pioneer Invitational, UWP, DePaul, UNL, and SIUE competed to see who was the top team in the Midway conference. The games were highly competitive and entertaining to watch. The following are the results from Saturday:

UWP def SIUE (6-1)
UWP def DePaul (6-0)
UNL def SIUE (5-1)
UNL def DePaul (6-1)
Alumni def UWP (3-1)
SIUE def DePaul (7-0)
Alumni def SIUE (3-0)
UWP def UNL (2-1) OT

A quality tournament from a high quality bunch!

Pioneer Invitational

This Saturday, November 16, 2019, the teams of the Midway Conference go head to head in what should be a classic. The teams in attendance will be the University of Wisconsin Platteville (UWP), University Nebraska Lincoln (UNL), Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), and DePaul University. This is the first time that all these teams will be in the same building, which is a great thing to see for this conference. It is going to be a fun day and it all starts at 8:30a.m. with SIUE vs UWP. Let’s take a look at the schedule and what some of the leaders think going into the tournament.