Season Recap – Dodgeball Club-UWP

With the 2026-27 season rapidly approaching, now is a great time to reflect on the challenges and celebrations that UWP’s Dodgeball Club has faced this previous season.

Goals

A few of the most important goals this season were to attend at least eight tournaments, have enough players for a travelling B-team, recruit enough women for a full women’s team, and to make it to the champion bracket or continue the consolation bracket dynasty.

When looking at the season in terms of these goals, we did make some great progress. We were able to attend at least eight tournaments during the season, including nationals, and two of those tournaments were hosted on our own campus, which satisfied two of our goals. Unfortunately, we were not able to recruit enough players for a travelling B-team. However, at Pioneer Classic VI, we were able to have enough UWP players to have a B-team on home turf. Even though that didn’t satisfy our goal completely, it is still one step closer to achieving in the next season. Another goal we were unable to complete this year was being able to recruit enough women for a full women’s team. This season, we were able to bring six women to Women’s Nationals, which was only three women away from having a full women’s A-team. Although we didn’t complete this goal yet, we are once again one step closer to achieving this goal in the next season! Another goal for the women’s team was to finish Women’s Nationals in the final four, thankfully, due to an overtime nail-biter, we were able to complete that goal!! Finally, another goal we chose to tackle was to either make it to the champion bracket at Nationals or win the consolation bracket again. Unfortunately, we did not place into the champion bracket this year, but we were thankfully able to continue our streak of winning the consolation bracket! As fun as it is to win the consolation bracket, and build a “dynasty”, we hope to make it to the championship bracket this next season.

Photo with Chancellor Evetovich at Zanderthon

Awards

Awards were voted on once again by the members of the UWP Dodgeball Club, and after much discussion and reflection of everyone’s growth during the past season, here are the results:

Reagan Bucholtz – Team Impact

Dalton Foreyt – Most Improved

Ben Breidenbach & Dylan Fabry – Ballers of the Year

Stephen Bittner – Rookie of the Year

Tori Sanborn – Women’s Baller of the Year

Jamie Damm – Women’s Rookie of the Year

Election Results

The 2026-27 e-board was also discussed and voted upon by UWP Dodgeball Club members, and below are the results:

Ben Breidenbach – Captain

David Laux – Co-Captain

Reagan Bucholtz – Women’s Captain & Secretary

Jamie Damm – Women’s Co-Captain

Tori Sanborn – President

Daniel Breitenstein – Vice President

Alex Kirchman – Treasurer

Chloe Kaderabek – Content Writer

Favorite Moments

One highlight of every season is dressing up for Halloween practice, and getting to test your dodgeball skills dressed up.

Team bonding off the court is always something to look forward to, especially disc golfing. Other team bonding highlights were playing pool, study sessions. team dinners, and bowling!

Getting to travel off campus for a night of hockey in Dubuque to see the Fighting Saints is always a good time, especially when the Fighting Saints win!

The women’s team twinning nights are a great way to bond and coordinate with the ladies! This adds even more fun to the no-sting practices.

Another season of dodgeball has come and gone, and it is finally time to look back and review all of the struggles we endured and accomplishments we achieved.

A few of our largest goals were to compete in at least 8 tournaments, recruit enough for a b-team and a women’s team, and at nationals, either make it to the championship bracket or win the consolation bracket. Overall, we had a pretty successful season.

By the end of the year, after traveling to many schools, we surpassed our goal and played in a total of eleven tournaments including nationals. You can read more about how nationals went here, but regarding our goals, although we did not make it to the championship bracket, we succeeded at winning the consolation bracket in a close game against WMU. This proved to us that we are closer to making it to the championship bracket that we realized and that it is 100% possible.

UWP vs. WMU winning point
Photo Credit: Reagan Bucholtz

We started off the year strong with six rookies ready to compete and learn the game of dodgeball, three of which were women. So, although we did not gain enough to form a b-team we successfully created Platteville’s first women’s no-sting dodgeball team. This allowed us to compete at women’s nationals in Miami, Ohio with seven women, more than a full team.

Women’s nationals at Miami University 2024-25
Photo Credit: Clare Beck

Although we did not win a title at women’s nationals this year, we showed that we are capable of great things. With another year of practice and recruiting more rookies we have a good chance of doing some winning next year. We are all very excited to work hard and come back stronger than ever next season.

Awards

All of this year’s awards required tough voting processes due to the growth each one of our members have made this year. In the end the winners were…

Nick Stocks – Team Impact

Hollie Wheeler – Most Improved

Jalen Sims – Baller of the Year

David Laux – Rookie of the Year

Hollie Wheeler – Women’s Baller of the Year

Alison Draxler – Women’s Rookie of the Year

Election Results

Here are our 2025-26 e-board members and what they are looking forward to for this upcoming season.

Captain – Dylan Fabry

“I’m looking forward to leading and bringing a full experienced team to our tournaments and taking home a lot more wins this season.”

Co-Captain – Ben Breidenbach

“I’m looking forward to having a larger impact on our team both on and off the court.”

President – Hollie Wheeler

“I am looking forward to seeing the team grow both on and off the court. When we have trust, confidence, and communication, we’ll be able to play better as a team. I want to see our hard work lead to success, and I’m excited to see how the new rookies will adapt.”

Vice President – Eric Sullivan

“I am looking forward to seeing how this team grows next season. We had a lot of growth from last season and I’m excited to see so many veterans on our team. I’m expecting big things from everyone next season.”

Secretary – Reagan Bucholtz

“What I am looking forward to the most is growing more as a team on and off the court, as well as competing stronger as a team.”

Treasurer – Tori Sanborn

“I would say I am mostly looking forward to seeing the improvement of me and the rest of the team as well as watching our team grow. Not in just numbers, but also in the bonds we create.”

Content Writer – Alison Draxler

“I am looking forward to watching our team improve and helping with recruiting more players. Especially for growing our women’s team because this season proved that it is possible.”