{"id":3668,"date":"2026-05-12T20:09:32","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T01:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/?p=3668"},"modified":"2026-05-12T20:09:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T01:09:33","slug":"april-2026-rookie-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/2026\/05\/12\/april-2026-rookie-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"April 2026 Rookie of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Rookie of the Month award is an award given monthly to a player voted on by their teammates to recognize all the hard work they have put into the team throughout the month. This month’s winner was Stephen Bittner! He is a Senior currently pursuing a mechanical engineering degree and expects to graduate in 2026. Here are his responses to some brief interview questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Q: How do you feel about winning Rookie of the Month for the second time?
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A:<\/strong> It feels great! I put in my best at Nationals, and this feels like recognition for the hard work I’ve put into dodgeball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: What skill do you think you improved the most throughout the season?
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A:<\/strong> I think I’ve improved the most on blocking. When I first started with dodgeball, that was the skill I had the least experience with. It felt awkward when I first started and I dirty blocked a lot. Fast forward to today, and I think it might be my best skill, and it feels great to protect teammates while they make plays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: What was your favorite part of Nationals?
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A:<\/strong> My favorite part was definitely coming back after Saturday and proving how well we could work together as a team against CMU and UIUC. It was a really good way to end the season!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: What was your favorite tournament this season and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A:<\/strong> It’s between the Ohio Nationals and Tyler Webb Memorial III for me. Despite getting destroyed at bowling green, it was a really enjoyable experience for me to go up against some really good teams and see how well we could stand up against them. I think I also learned a lot from that tournament in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Rookie of the Month award is an award given monthly to a player voted on by their teammates to recognize all the hard work they have put into the … Continue reading “April 2026 Rookie of the Year”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rotm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3670,"href":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3668\/revisions\/3670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}