The 2022 NCDA Nationals tournament was held in Kalamazoo, MI at Western Michigan University after a 2-year hiatus of national competitions; needless to say, every team was jacked up to be under one roof again. This was a special year for UWP as a large portion of our team consisted of rookies that have never been to nationals before. In practice leading up to the big day, veterans would hype it up as a great opportunity to be a part of something bigger and to truly bond as a team. This was exactly the case because we never had as many players jumping, yelling and cheering at one time before.
Going into the tournament, Platteville sat at seed 16 out of 18 other teams, so the odds were not exactly in our favor from the start. The first day served as a placement day where all points gained were doubled and Platteville was scheduled to play Cleaveland State University, Ohio State University, and Saginaw Valley University, which were some of the better teams out of the bunch. UWP fought hard in each match and ended up taking SVSU to overtime and even winning against CSU, thus moving up to the 13th spot.
For the first game of the single elimination tournament, we were matched up against the University of Cincinnati Bearcats, whom we lost to two weeks prior. Everyone on the team knew that these guys were going to be tough competition, but that did not hinder anybody’s spirits. Everyone, even those on the sidelines, were shouting out the clock and cheering. UWP managed to score the first point against UC after a strong start, with which they responded by scoring two consecutive points. After halftime, the fourth point was hardly fought ending in a 1v1 situation with UWP President JT Warren against UC Brannon McGinn. It was so close, but UC ended up getting the point from a catch. The clock stalled out during the fifth point resulting in a final score of 3-1 UC.
Even though we ended up losing a hard battle, everyone was glad that we went down fighting. When the captains first found out who they were playing, UC was upset that they had to play us instead of an easier team. In fact, other teams were even joking after the game that they blew their arms out when playing us. Although it didn’t go the way that some veterans were hoping it would, the future looks bright for our team. Once clumsy rookies have become well-seasoned in the game, many even stepping up and starting each point. One thing is for certain next year, and that is that we will compete hard, together, and for the win.
