{"id":3716,"date":"2026-07-01T13:29:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/?p=3716"},"modified":"2026-07-01T13:29:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:29:19","slug":"rookie-of-the-year-2026-stephen-bittner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/2026\/07\/01\/rookie-of-the-year-2026-stephen-bittner\/","title":{"rendered":"Rookie of the Year 2026- Stephen Bittner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This is award given to a first-year player on the team that has put in a lot of effort and makes an impact on the court. They provide us with throws and catches when it is needed the most. The winner is voted on by their teammates and this year\u2019s rookie of the year is Stephen Bittner. Let\u2019s take a look at his interview below and how he feels about winning this award!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Q: How do you feel about winning this award?<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>A: It feels pretty good. I think it shows that I&#8217;ve improved quite a bit since the beginning of the season because blocking was my worst skill by far and now it might be my best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Q: What was your proudest moment from this season?<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>A: My proudest moment was probably when I was the last player remaining player in one of the points at Nationals and I got an out or two and a catch. I had struggled figuring out how to play best when I was alone before, and that point felt like redemption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Q: What do you hope to improve on?<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>A: I&#8217;m hoping to improve on throwing this next season. As any tournament goes on, my accuracy and speed goes down and I would like to work on that.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Q: What are you looking forward to for the next season?<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>A: I&#8217;m looking forward to playing in the center and improving at drawing attention and providing pressure with pump faking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Q: What is your greatest takeaway from this season?<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>A: My biggest takeaway is that communication is the most important thing on the court. You are almost never going to be able to make plays without the support of your teammates, and they&#8217;re not mind readers. Make sure to communicate effectively!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1080\" height=\"1350\" src=\"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/files\/2026\/06\/4-819x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3717\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/files\/2026\/06\/4-819x1024.png 819w, https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/files\/2026\/06\/4-240x300.png 240w, https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/files\/2026\/06\/4-768x960.png 768w, https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/files\/2026\/06\/4-102x128.png 102w, https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/files\/2026\/06\/4-26x32.png 26w, https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/files\/2026\/06\/4.png 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Congratulations to Stephen for winning this award and for all of the hard work he&#8217;s put in this season!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is award given to a first-year player on the team that has put in a lot of effort and makes an impact on the court. They provide us with &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/2026\/07\/01\/rookie-of-the-year-2026-stephen-bittner\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Rookie of the Year 2026- Stephen Bittner&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rookie-of-the-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3716","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\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3716"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3743,"href":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3716\/revisions\/3743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncdadodgeball.com\/uwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}