uwec – NCDA

Women’s Heartland Havoc Preview

Saturday, October 10th, welcomes the first ever Heartland Havoc women’s tournament hosted by Iowa! This is a very big accomplishment not only for their young coach, Andrew Heim, but for the central region as a whole as this is the first official women’s tournament hosted in the region. Several events like the two Platteville home tournaments, the central region cup, and Eau Claire’s home tournaments have scheduled women’s matches along side their open games, but the Heartland Havoc is the first all women’s event. If you didn’t know, the central region had half the teams in the women’s league going into this season as well as some of the youngest teams in the division. This makes having an official women’s tournament in the region all the more important not only for internal team growth but regional growth as well. It gives our women the opportunity to prioritize and showcase all the hard work they’ve put into their team so far this season, and it offers a glimpse into what the rest of the season will look like. This event will see four teams in attendance: UWP, UIUC, UWEC, and of course Iowa. Each team will play three games, and at the end of the day, an open match between Iowa and a mixed team will take place.

Central Region Women’s Preview 2026-27

While this preview comes a little late into the start of the season, I touched on all of these teams in the Women’s League Preview, which you can read here. For this article, I wanted to hear from the teams directly on how the season’s been going so far. So below are the interview questions I asked each team in the region. Thank you to those who responded, so let’s hear from the teams!

Rosen Bowl III Preview

On Saturday, September 19 the UW-Stout Dodgeball Club is hosting their third home tournament in the Multi-Purpose Room of the Recreation Complex. The building’s address is:

712 South Broadway Street
Menomonie, WI 54751

The Bluedevils will host the Blugolds in both scrimmage matches and each club’s first ranked match of the 2026-27 school year. Both teams are structured similarly being comprised mostly of rookies looking to their experienced club leaders for guidance. Some members of the newly formed UW-Stevens Point Dodgeball Club will also attend and participate in scrimmage matches.

For those unable to attend in person, matches will be streamed and recorded on the Bluedevil Dodgeball Club’s YouTube channel.

The schedule can be viewed below.

Cue 1 @ 11 am- UWS vs. UWEC (Scrimmage)

Cue 2 @ 12:15 pm- Mixed 1 vs. Mixed 2 (Scrimmage) | UWEC vs. Mixed 3 (Women’s Scrimmage)

Cue 3 @ 1:30 pm- UWS vs. UWEC (Official Match)

UW-Stout

This year has so far been a successful recruiting season for the Bluedevils. Stout’s rookies will be leaning on the veteran leadership of players like Angel Lucero, Tyler Mathison, and Kaden Brede. Coach Jacob will be looking to get his rookies some tournament experience at home before the season kicks into full gear in October. If this year’s rookie class is anything like last year’s, Stout will have some players in contention for the All Region Rookie list.

The Bluedevils will be hoping to repeat their successes of the Rosen Bowl II where they outpaced the Blugolds and controlled momentum for nearly the entire event.

Click here to check out the club’s Instagram page!

UW-Eau Claire

Eau Claire too has done well with recruitment. The Blugolds are expecting to bring a full 12 to a tournament for the first time in club history. The relatively short drive is the perfect opportunity for this young squad to get experience.

It was only late last fall that the Blugolds began to find their team’s on-court identity. With over half of the roster being rookies, the team will be leaning on the experience of Cleo Moen, Kaitlynn Moore, and Jason Bleskan, to name a few. Several players were able to gain some experience in the National Dodgeball Association (NDA) format at the Tim Ebert Memorial Scholarship Tournament last weekend.

Click here to check out the club’s Instagram page!

2026-2027 Women’s League Preview

The NCDA’s Women’s league has seen a boost in attention over the course of the last two seasons, and it’s unsurprising with how hard these women fight for their spotlight. This season, unfortunately, recruitment seems to be far more challenging than previous years, which forces teams to fall back on their vets as teams slowly shrink in size. But recruitment isn’t everything, so let’s see how these teams are doing coming out of summer break and learn who’s on the playing field for this season!

Central Region Preview 2026-2027

It’s time to dust off our jerseys as we approach the start of the 2026-27 NCDA season! The central region is excited to welcome back its many players and teams from a well deserved summer break as well as introduce those trying to break into the league. Lots of exciting things happened over the course of last season: First ever Central Region cup, two-time consolation bracket winners (UWP), Iowa’s first official season, and so much more! It will be exciting to see what happens next in the Central region, but for now, let’s take a look at who’s returning.

Central Region Women’s 2026 Season Recap

The past few seasons have gifted the central region with significant growth in its women’s teams. University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign (UIUC) got the ball rolling by participating in the first ever women’s national tournament, and University of Wisconsin-Platteville (UWP) was quick to follow by forming their own team to compete the following year. Now the central region has three official women’s teams, the third being University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), who were unable to attend nationals this year. Now, at the end of the 2026 season, there are three more schools who have a chance at forming teams and joining the women’s league. This is huge! The women’s league has been dominated by Michigan State University and University of Akron since its debut, so seeing the league branch out of the Ohio/Michigan region into the central region is very exciting to be a part of. Let’s take a look at how the women of the central region did this season!

2026 All Central Region Conference

We celebrate the conclusion of the 2025-2026 season by recognizing and congratulating the individual players who put in the effort to make it to the All Central Region team. The teams that make up the central region are the following: University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Illinois-Urbana Champagne, University of Wisconsin-Platteville, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, University of Iowa, and University of Wisconsin-Stout. The players that make this team are voted in by their peers, and thank you to those who helped make this post possible. Let’s take a look at what they have to say.

Central Region 2026 Season Recap

Compared to previous seasons, the Central region made leaps and bounds in terms of progress and growth. Not only did rookie team Iowa host their first official tournament, they also sent ambassadors to this years national tournament in Athens, OH, AND they hosted the first ever Central Region Cup. The number of teams currently in the Central region–six official and four prospective–makes them the second largest region in the league, right behind the Ohio region with eight teams.

Blugold Invitational II Preview

UW-Eau Claire will be hosting their second tournament of the season on Saturday, March 28th, which will be the last central region event of the season. Those expected to attend are close rivals, UW-Platteville, with less than a week of rest from the last tournament they played in, and a large mixed team consisting of players from several schools–UW-Stout, UW-La Crosse, UW-Steven’s Point, UW-River Falls, and Winona State University. These teams are potential candidates for future growth in the central region, and these nearby tournaments allow them to get a feel for the league and hopefully feel encouraged to form their own teams. This tournament will bring the central region season to a close, so let’s see what these teams and players have left in them before nationals.

Zanderthon Throw-Down X Recap

The annual Zanderthon Throw-Down took place on February 21st at the University of Wisconsin Platteville. This event had the following teams represented: Platteville, Illinois, Stout, Eau Claire, Nebraska, Winona State, River Falls, La Crosse, Stevens Point, Iowa, and UWP alumni. This was one the biggest events ever held in the central region. In previous years, the Zanderthon Throw-Down was just between UWP and UNL and just last year it was UWP vs UIUC. It show cased a total of ten teams. Six current member teams and four upcoming teams with the potential of joining the league this semester.

We also had two women’s matches on the day and added another team to the women’s standings with UNL having their first official match as a club! There were a lot of exciting matches with a few overtimes. Let’s take a look at the results and hear some thoughts from players on the day. Pictures below were taken by Emily Diekmann.

Zanderthon Throw-Down X Preview

Platteville will be hosting the 10th annual Zanderthon Throw-Down on February 21st. The teams in attendance will be the University of Wisconsin Platteville (UWP), the University of Nebraska Lincoln (UNL), the University of Iowa, Winona State University (WSU), University of Illinois Urbana Champaign (UIUC), the University of Wisconsin Stout (UWS), University of Wisconsin Eau Claire (UWEC), upcoming Wisconsin schools, and alumni. This weekend will mark one of the biggest events to date for this region and for a lot of players in attendance, this is going to be their first experience playing college dodgeball. Let’s take a look at the teams and the schedule below.

Central Dodgeball Cup

Central Mid-Season Recap

We reach a breathing point of the season, so we can finally see what’s been accomplished thus far. Fun games and intense games go hand-in-hand with the growing women’s league as well as the brand new tournaments and rookie squads. The central region has done quite a bit of growing since last year. UNL still sits at the top with UIUC not far behind, UWS and UWP fight for their spots, and Iowa and UWEC dip their toes into the waters for their first official season.

Blugold Invitational II

Rosen Bowl II Recap

Overview

November 22, 2025 was a big day for the UW-Stout and UW-Eau Claire dodgeball clubs. Stout won its first match in club history, followed it up with another, and successfully held its second home tournament. Eau Claire officially joined the NCDA after a few years of trial matches. Needless to say, the coaches and players on each team were thrilled to hold what may be the birth of a new rivalry as Eau Claire and Menominee are a mere 30-minutes apart.

The matches can be viewed on UW-Stout’s YouTube channel here and here.