On Saturday, Georgia Southern hosted the Southern Standoff with Ole Miss and North Georgia also in attendance. If you didn’t tune in to watch, you missed quite the shake-up in the South Region, but not to worry, I’ve got you covered with a full recap including some thoughts from each team.
By Ethan Lehmkuhl
GSU
GSU 9-0 UNG
GSU 8-0 Ole Miss
If NCDA teams were stocks, Georgia Southern just skyrocketed after this weekend. The Eagles were dominant in both of their matches, winning by a combined score of 17-0. Many factors contributed to their success, so let’s jump in. First off, playing host in the South Region has paid dividends this year. With the region still in its infancy, getting your top players to tournaments is crucial, and hosting a tournament almost ensures that you will have your top dogs in the fight. For GSU, that top dog was Brandon Shaw. Put simply, the dude throws gas. Other key players included captains Thomas Smith and Andrew Groover, who were crucial for organizing and executing the GSU game plan. Zach Rivera, the founder of GSU dodgeball, was also in attendance. He was a big part of helping to ref and stream, so shoutout to Zach. Looking ahead, I think GSU will be the favorite to win the South Dodgeball Cup this year, that is if they are able to bring a full roster!
Ole Miss
Ole Miss 11-1 UNG
Ole Miss 0-8 GSU
Saturday was a good day for Ole Miss as the team was able to pick up their first win in program history over UNG (11-1 was Scorigami!). This is more impressive considering that the Rebs only had 8 people in attendance for this tournament. Among the top performers were Cooper Moree, who took home tournament MVP, Nick Menendez, and Roland Hayes. Ole Miss has made leaps and bounds for being a first-year program, and it has been fun to watch them improve. With a roster of mostly freshmen, I expect them to keep this improvement up. Looking forward to SDC, this is not a team to sleep on. I would love to see how they match up with NKU, and if they bring a full roster I could see this squad making some noise at SDC-igami.
UNG
UNG 0-9 GSU
UNG 1-11 Ole Miss
North Georgia was also only able to bring 8 people to the Southern Standoff, and it hurt them on the court. The Nighthawks lost captains Alex Philips and Carter Johnson to graduation at the break, and they certainly missed these guys pacing their offensive attacks. Stepping up in their absence were captains Sean Clark Samuel Martinez, and Keena Waye. UNG will need to hammer the recruiting this off-season if they hope to reclaim their spot atop the region. Until then, UNG will NEED more people in attendance if they hope to compete at SDC and nationals.
UNG on top soon