Miami club dodgeball brings home school’s first national title

When Max Edling first arrived at Miami University in 2021, he quickly joined the club dodgeball team, looking for a fun extracurricular activity. The senior sports management major played dodgeball all four years of high school, and he heard the team found some success before the COVID-19 pandemic.

He was half-right in his expectations for the club.

“Everyone graduated from [the previous year], and there were only three returning players my freshman year,” Edling said. “We weren’t very good … We won our first game on the last day of the season on day two of nationals.”

The team improved slightly the following year before taking a big step forward in 2024. The RedHawks made it to the Elite Eight of the national tournament after defeating Pennsylvania State University 4-3. They fell 6-1 to The Ohio State University in the following round.

Despite the loss, Miami pushed farther than ever before in program history. The RedHawks only made one Elite Eight appearance before 2024. However, Edling wasn’t satisfied just yet.

In his fourth and final season, he helped the RedHawks put forth their best season performance ever, culminating in Miami’s first National Collegiate Dodgeball Association (NCDA) championship on April 6.

The win marked Miami’s first championship in program history and the first time an Ohio team had won it since 2006, when Ohio State University took the title.

Miami Club Dodgeball originated in 2006, one year after the formation of the NCDA. However, the club shut down after seven years due to a lack of interest. It returned in 2016, and the team saw some success, even reaching the Elite Eight in 2019.

After COVID-19, the RedHawks went from a top-five team in the NCDA to nearly winless the following year.

Edling witnessed the early version of the team before its national success. He especially liked that the club was entirely student-run, even though other teams like Michigan State University have a head coach and sponsorships.

“There’s something to be said about how truly student-led our club is,” Edling said. “Three of the four Final Four teams have a head coach that travels with them for every tournament [and] coaches them and goes to their practice. We’re the one that doesn’t have a head coach, and we beat two of them.”

As a student organization, the players don’t feel that the team becomes too much of a time commitment. Philip Hampton, a junior computer engineering major and a team captain, still enjoys spending extra time at practice.

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“This is a great sport if you want to play [something that’s not] a big time commitment,” Hampton said. “[But] you’ll see students who want to get better, they’ll show up early, and they’ll stay after practice to keep working on throwing, catching, etc. It’s ultimately how much you want to put into the club.”

The team accepts any student interested in the club, and the RedHawks travel to several tournaments throughout the fall semester. In the spring, the captains finalize an 18-person roster (12 players + six substitutes) to finish out the season.

Each semester, the RedHawks compete in at least three tournaments, including the Ohio Dodgeball Cup, before finishing the year at nationals.

This year, Miami played its first tournament at the University of Cincinnati. The RedHawks and the Bearcats faced each other five times throughout the season. Everytime, Miami won the Battle for the Victory Bell.

The RedHawks played two more tournaments in the fall semester. After getting back to campus at the end of January, Miami hosted Ohio State and Northern Kentucky University before hitting the road again for the Ohio Dodgeball Cup on Feb. 15.

They lost to Ohio State early in the cup, but they defeated Kent State University and Cincinnati for the third time in the year.

The RedHawks finished the year at the national tournament in Cleveland.

They rematched against Kent State on day one. The team trailed 2-0, but a second-half push sent the game into overtime, where the RedHawks took the win.

“We have that big momentum boost going into our second game against UNL,” said Kaleigh Demeter, a sophomore history major and the social media manager for the team. “We ended up winning like 5-0 that game, and then going into our third game against Akron, we all knew we were going to take a backseat on that one.”

Miami dropped the matchup against Akron, but its earlier wins solidified a spot in the championship bracket against Saginaw Valley State University, whom Miami handled 4-1.

Another win over Kent State in the quarterfinals sent Miami to the Final Four against Michigan State, the reigning champions from 2024 and 2023.

“We knew that they were a very good team,” said Ty Keller, a junior sports management major and a captain of the team. “It was going to take our best effort to play and beat them.”

In the past, Edling said Miami blew leads frequently. However, the RedHawks rebounded from a one-point deficit and held onto their 3-2 lead until the final buzzer, sending them to the championship and to their fifth matchup against Cincinnati.

A slow first half concluded with Cincinnati taking the first point of the game. Another point for the Bearcats found Miami down 2-0 with 13 minutes on the clock.

“We [knew] we had to put pressure on them,” Edling said. “We need to make a move, or our season’s over.”

Miami took its first point of the match in five minutes. Cincinnati battled back by catching four balls, and after a timeout, the RedHawks tied the game at two apiece to send the game into overtime.

The RedHawks officially took the title when Keller caught a ball to bring Edling back in and leave Cincinnati with one player.

One final kill, and Miami took its 22nd win of the season and first championship title.

“I was just thinking that if I can get a catch, I can get Max [back in],” Keller said. “I knew that if I could get Max back in, then we’d have a chance … I was just pure joy. I was jumping up and down.”

Edling will move on from the team after he graduates this spring, along with two other senior players. . With growing interest in the sport and more recruits, the RedHawks are confident that the program will only improve from here.

@kethanbabu_04

babukc2@miamioh.edu