We Made Dodgeball Great Again
Friday night was the big Central Regional dodgeball tournament!
Myself and Andy Chase repped the Hawk, Vin Ebenau came from the Townsquare News department. Ray from the Traffic department, and Andria & Shari from Sales rounded out the team.
With literally zero minutes of practice, we were completely ready to do battle with whatever team we we were seeded against. Our first round draw was the Berkeley Township PBA. In a best-of-three format, we lost the first game, managed to win the second game, but sadly lost the final matchup.
Our team stuck around to cheer on the rest of the competitors, and I was legit shocked at how emotionally invested I was at times. My fandom latched on to certain teams, and at more than a few moments I was actually yelling at the officials for missing calls.
There was a team that absolutely dominated their first two rounds, smashing their opponents 2-0 in each round, and if I remember correctly, never even losing a team member. These guys cruised to the finals, where they took on a group of high schoolers. The high school kids pulled off an amazing upset to win the first game, but the big guys stormed back to take the second. Honestly, I've seen Super Bowls that were less tense then going to a winner-takes-all dodgeball game. How could it possibly get more tense? By ending with a one-on-one matchup. Both teams lost five players, leaving one on each side. Each player had a ball in hand, with a few other balls just laying on the court, daring someone to pick them up and expose themselves to a strike.
With the final throw, the high school kid unleashed - the big guy jumped, took a hit on his legs, tried to pull off a Matrix move to reach down, but the ball fell just out of reach of his fingertips and bounced to the ground. No lie, I haven't seen an upset like that since the Giants beat the Patriots the first time.
Despite smashing my knee into the court making a diving catch, I had a fantastic time. Thanks to Central Regional for letting us compete!
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