Dodgeball Champions

Greensboro, NC -- After six long weeks of intense battles, nerf balls flying at you at speeds faster than what you drive on the highway, and blood, Team "Cobra Kai" emerged victoriously in the City of Winston-Salem Dodgeball Tournament. Each week consists of 4 games against another team. The victorious team stays on the court to battle the next challenger. Each time slot has 3 teams. Altogether, you'll play 8 games against 2 different opponents. After two cupcake rounds, consisting of records of 7-1 and 6-2, we fell mightily in week 3 going 5-3. The last three games were all losses to "Puma." Needless to say, it left a bad taste in every one's mouth going into week 4. It also didn't help that out of all six teams in the competition, Puma had the poorest form of sportsmanship. I was told that one of their players abandoned their newborn baby in a dumpster a few years ago. Going into week 4, we split with Puma 2-2, then took 3 out of 4 against the "Average Joe's." What a creative name. Week 5 paired us against top seeded "Bye Week." Bye Week had a team full of gunslingers who were extremely overaggressive. What I mean by that is all of their guys would throw the ball as hard as they could, but they wouldn't keep any balls left behind for shielding. As soon as the rockets flew by us, they became sitting ducks. We took them down 6-2 in what easily could have been a sweep.


Entering the tournament as the #2 seed -- we booted Bye Week to #3 and Puma usurped the top seed -- we defeated Bye Week after our opening round bye (no pun intended). We employed the same strategy as executed in week 5 -- stay back, let 'em fire, then run-up and pin them. Average Joe's, the "Cinderella team" defeated Puma in a major upset. For the championship, it's a best of 5 series. We split the first two games with Average Joe's which both went to sudden death. After taking the third game thanks to the heroics of Jay, we needed one game to seal the deal. Down 5 players to 2 with less than 30 seconds on the clock, I saw one of the greatest athletic moves of my lifetime. Wake, our team captain, got hit with a ball in his chest, but it shot straight up into the air which he caught. Less than a second later, he threw the ball at the opponent, who was out on the throw. During the throw, one of Average Joe's girls threw the ball at Wake, who caught it with with another ball (a shield) in his hand. A 3 man swing in 12 seconds. In the sudden death, 2 on 2, an Average Joe crossed the midpoint line on the scramble for balls -- an automatic out. What an anticlimactic way to win a championship. I have my gold medal in hand!


Some Key Dodgeball Points:

• Having girls that stay in -- not necessary throwing people out -- are definitely the key (psychologically and mathematically).
• When running up to the midpoint line, always have a "shield" ball or a teammate blocking you.
• Don't throw all of your fastballs at the beginning -- save your arm strength when you need it.
• Aim low -- the nerf balls tend to rise the longer that they're in the air.
• Don't overthrow -- sometimes the best strategy is letting the other team make stupid mistakes.

The Coveted Gold Medal: