Tag: dodgeball

The Honey Badgers had a double header this week. This always scares me a bit, because of all the throwing that our guys will do doing on the night. I always fear someone is going to burn their arm/shoulder out. Plus I’m still working up my arm strength/endurance and still have a throw count that I’m gradually building up.

Well to help out our cause this week, we happened to be issued a free agent. Bearded Joe (I don’t know his last name yet, and since we now have 2 Joe’s that’s what I’m going with for now). He instantly proved to be a great teammate and pretty solid player as well. I don’t know how we do it, but we always seem to do great with free agents.

Former Honey Badger great Lauren was on hand as well, not to play (fractured hand) but to present a great fundraiser coming up in May for MS. I’m going to do my best to get the team to volunteer and hopefully get more of the league as well. It sounds like a noble cause.

Our first game was against the Banzai Executioners. As always it was a fun and tight contest. We always enjoy playing them, and it was really neck and neck for the most part. We actually had to call the match short due to time, so I’m not exactly sure if they officially got the victory or if it will be made up at this point.

Overall I thought we underachieved a bit as a team (a bad trend), but did flash signs of improvement along the way. Eryn and Ginny really stood out for their improvement and earned Honey Badger of the Week honors as a result. I thought Chris really played a lot better too, and new addition Bearded Joe not only brought intensity on the court, but off the court as well cheering teammates on.

Our later game was against the new team, Sea You Next Tuesday. I haven’t seen them play before last night, so had no idea what we were up against. They had some talented players, but you could tell they were overall new to the game still.

We were able to defeat them, earning our very first official win of the season! It was pretty nice to finally get that win.

As far as my comeback tour goes, I’ve been very impressed thus far. I’ve been throwing extremely hard and pretty accurate as well. I even have been having success getting some solid, late movement on my throws as well. They’ve been coming off heavy and low, making them very difficult to catch (none have been caught thus far).

All that hard work training and rehabbing have freakishly paid off to me. There’s no way even two months ago I’d of told you I’d be throwing as well as I am today. Arm strength/endurance is still an issue though. The shoulder is doing better than ever, but the elbow does tire out and get’s painful pretty early on though. Gradually working it up every week does seem to build up strength without setbacks so far.

Enough about me, all in all I was very pleased with the team this week! Our girls played a lot more aggressive and that made a huge difference. I hope we continue to improve towards the playoffs.

I know this might not be a big deal to most, but last night was my return to dodgeball using my reconstructed right elbow!

Not only was I able to throw for the first time in 6 months, but I threw pretty damn well all things considering.

All my throws were tight and low, with many having some late movement on them. None were caught and a couple resulted in the few pegs. I’m not sure it could have gone much better for my first attempt at returning.

I only played in 2 matches to ease my arm back into form. Even though it was only 2 matches, both involved a lot of throwing and wow am I sore as a result. Last night I was a bit concerned that the soreness could be something more serious, but while still very sore I think it’s gone down a bit today. Hopefully it’s just soreness and I’ll be fine in a day or so.

The only real drawback on the night was that we lost the game! But, we did play a lot better than the previous week, so I’m hoping we can get some wins soon!

I still don’t think we’re playing up to our potential as a team just yet.

One of my favorite days of the year, the first week of a SJSL season! It’s great to see all the familiar faces, say hello, etc. It reminds me of the first day of grade school when you see all the kids who you were friends with but didn’t see much over the summer.

This season we had almost all of our players returning as well as the addition of 3 new additions (technically 4, but one didn’t show last night). One is my friend since 1st grade, so I knew Wes would fit right in a be a fine addition to the squad. And I must say I’m very much impressed by Megan and Chris as well. Both not only were fine participants, but picked up the rules right away and got along great with everyone. Should be a fun season.

The only negative on the  night was our opponent, 3-time champion The Ghostbusters. Not only are they very, very good, but we were playing with brand new dodgeballs last night. Brand new dodgeballs means a faster ball with more movement. This would wind up making shot work of many Honey Badgers on the night.

It really hard to say much about the game, we were pretty much dominated from start to finish. Our guys did win 1 match and it was pretty great. With our reaction you’d of thought we won the entire league.

Once everyone settles down, I do think we should have a pretty solid team. Our girls are all pretty athletic and if they play a bit more aggressively I do believe they can beat any girl squad. I just need them to be more aggressive in going for catches, so many of them are great at catching but they still seem committed to dodging all the time.

Our guys are looking ok too. We just drew a really tough match-up for our first game. But like I told everyone, the game will seem much slower playing the other teams now.

Despite the loss, I’m really impressed with our potential and know it will be fun.

Historically the dodgeball playoffs haven’t been a moment when the Honey Badgers shine. Sadly, this season would be more of the same. We really pick the wrong time to have the worst game of our season.

It was hard to pinpoint what exactly the problem was, but we were just flat for the majority of the night. I myself, bad elbow or not was pretty horrible. I just didn’t play aggressive enough for some reason. Maybe because I slipped last week, I was being a bit too cautious to not fall and land on my arm again? I don’t know.

However, John B. was throwing like a man possessed last night. Perhaps some of the hardest throws we had seen in all of dodgeball by any player this season. He really brought it last night, but the rest of the crew unfortunately couldn’t provide enough last night to help him out.

It was pretty great to see that when we were down 8 games to 1 we didn’t simply give up. We did manage to finally pull off 3 wins at that point. But again, it was too little too late as we had dug ourselves much too deep of a hole by that point.

Despite our lackluster performance, it was a very fun night! We do have a pretty awesome team and I’m very glad I did get the chance to play with everyone. Can’t wait for next season!

The Honey Badgers concluded the regular season with a 3-6 regular season record. While we did narrowly lose last night’s game to Dodgeasserole 9-7, our guys did have one of our finer moments all season.

Without our best guy, John B. out due to flu like symptoms we knew we’d all have to step up our game. And I was really proud to say we all did pick up our game and play one of our best games all season, without our best player and playing a man down 4 to 5 all night long.

Dustin was great all game. You could see he was letting loose, putting a little bit more on each throw. Same could be said of Kevin as well, who as always finds new ways of staying alive.

Even Jared vowed to play harder that night, and backed up his predictions with some big catches and some throws with bad intent.

And I in my second game back from elbow surgery managed to contribute as well. I made a good amount of catches, and even finished off a game with a big catch. I gotta admit, it felt pretty great to get my teammates excited and be the recipient of high fives! While I’m still not back yet, I am beginning to adjust to the speed of things more each week.

Unfortunately our girls on this night really had a hard time getting a win. It was weird, they weren’t outclassed at all, but our opponent always seemed to find and way to pull out a win against us. They played well, it’s just wasn’t our night I suppose.

Next week is the playoffs, can’t wait!

After over four months of being shut down due to a pretty nasty elbow injury and surgery, I finally was able to play, albeit a bit sparingly. It was a pretty awesome night.

Since I was wearing shorts in the middle of November, as my teammates arrived they all seemed a bit excited as I figured out that I would be attempting to play in last night’s game. I’ve got some really amazing and supportive teammates, and it was really great to see how excited they were for me, it made my usually calm self a bit excited too.

While my right elbow is probably still two months away from throwing shape, I did commit to using my left during the game. In warm ups, I can actually get some ok velocity and accuracy with my left after several weeks of practice. In a game however, where everything is sped up and I can’t mentally go over each step it was a much different story.

Throwing with my left was a disaster. One of my throws came our so early that it literally hung up in the air for what seemed an eternity. In fact, I could hear teammates complain about it before it was caught it was in the air so long. So, at that point I realized that my contributions couldn’t come from throwing that night.

So, I figured I could still contribute by gathering ammunition and giving it to the closest available teammate. This approach did work and I felt was a benefit to the team.

Another technique that I attempted was to server as a block for my teammates, aka “Human Shield”. This surprisingly was very effective and I think bought some of my guys some extra time and allowed them to get closer to the line knowing that I would jump the angles in case of retribution throws as they backed away from their throws.

All in all it was a pretty awesome night, and I was very glad to be back.

The Honey Badgers would go on to win a very dramatic overtime victory! Our team really played hard last night, and we really did a great job of supporting one another. It was pretty great to watch.

Even thought I’m still very limited, it’s pretty amazing to be back and able to contribute to the team!