After only a week, UWP Dodgeball was going head-to-head once again with the UNL Cornhuskers, this time at their facilities. There were two matches total. UNL took the lead the first game and maintained it throughout with a final score of 4-1 UNL. The second game was a battle for control, with UNL taking the lead 3-0 at halftime, but UWP came back and just fell short with a final score of 4-3 UNL with the last round going into overtime.
Like the home tournament last week, this was another tough battle. However, it is great to see the sport coming back with such force after an extended hiatus. We were truly honored to travel and compete with UNL once again. See below for a NCDA summary from Coach Erik Zander that goes into detail of each individual round for both this tournament, and the home tournament a week prior against UNL. Also check out some comments from one of the UWP captains, Jared Colden, as well as the UWP Dodgeball President, JT Warren.
Pioneer Classic & Cornhusker Clash Recap – NCDA (ncdadodgeball.com)
Captain’s Recap:
As an overall summary for the past two tournaments, I’d say we did a lot of good things and found things that we can work on. We had a lot of new guys playing in their first tournament as well as the vets shaking off some rust. I’m very glad with how our new guys played. It took them awhile to settle in to the faster pace, but they got used to it pretty quick. They gained a lot of good experience and grew a lot during these tournaments. Once we fell into our groove and played our game, we fired on all cylinders and played like a unit.
UNL has grown a lot. They are a very disciplined team and have gained a lot of experience. They were catching a lot and getting some crucial throws in there when they needed them. UNL has a lot of all around players that can basically do anything on the court. As a team they are very aware of what’s going on on the court. They had a lot of team catches which helped them in crucial moments.
As for players that stood out, it’s hard to choose specific ones. For us, I would say our new guys stepped up and exceeded my expectations so I’ll give it to them. Jacob has grown a lot too. His throw has gotten better and also had crucial catches for us.
For UNL, Robyn (14), Ethan (96), and Tre (34) stood out to me. Robyn had a lot of crucial catches that really helped them change the tide during the matches. She just seemed to not drop anything that came her way. Ethan had some strong and sneaky throws. He made some difficult catches and wasn’t afraid to fight for a ball. Tre had some good cross throws and overall good court awareness. It seemed like he could see stuff coming before it happened.
President’s Recap:
Our team as a whole played well all considering. We may have lost, but what we gained as a team was much more valuable. We have a significant number of rookies on our team that needed that experience and that is exactly what they got.
All of our rookies played amazing considering it was their first tournaments. While it is hard to name a few standouts I would have to mention Caleb Newell as he has been outstanding in coming in and learning the game so quickly while helping out the rookies with their throw. Cody Larson also started off the season with a bad ankle injury, but as soon as he got healed, he showed exactly what he could do. He balled out to say the least and quickly became a standout rookie. All of the rookies have improved so much and our success on the season will depend on how much they grow.
Watching them compete I am confident that our club will be able to compete with every team we come up against when the time comes. They will be our backbone for years to come and with what we have seen in these previous tournaments we are definitely going in the right direction.
