On October 7th we attended the first ever Cyclone Clash. This matchup was UWP vs UNL at an agreed neutral location. This allowed both teams to have an easy drive home as well as give Iowa State a taste of what NCDA dodgeball is like in attempts to bring another club into the league. In the end, we left with an 0-2 record and a lot of work to do.
In the first match we struggled to get going, it was not until about halftime that we started to show some signs of life. Once we were able to start getting our offense going and get more ball control we started to last longer, and we did not give up any short points. We struggled with easy drops and errant throws while also running into numerous shot clock violations. After halftime, we came out in the second half showed at times where we could have gotten a point or two but ultimately took steps backwards and let things get out of hand.
After the intermission, we started game two and once again were off to a slow start. However, some of our rookies started to pick up on some aspects of the game and came out of their initial rookie nerves. UNL’s attacks still managed to get the best of us as we struggled to establish our game. We stayed in points longer than we had in the first game, but we still struggled to work as a team with the shot clock and often times let too many throws get away from us. The second game brought some additional excitement as both teams received a yellow card in the second half.
In the end, we were extremely grateful to Iowa State for allowing us to use their facilities for this tournament and hope to see a team develop in the near future. We also had a lot of fun playing our aerial rivals UNL and would like to thank them for a great tournament. An extended thank you also goes out to UW-Stout for coming down and assisting in the officiating side of things. Going forward we have plenty of room for improvement and hope to see more rust shaken off our veterans and also look forward to see more breakout performances from our rookie players.
Our next tournament will hopefully be at MSU on October 28th followed by our home tournament on November 11th!