Miami University excels at competitive dodgeball

The Miami University RedHawks are ranked second in the nation for a common gym class pastime. 

According to the National Collegiate Dodgeball Association (NCDA), Miami University’s Club Dodgeball team sits on an 8-1 record. Of the 28 teams in the league, eight of the schools are based in Ohio, including Kent State University, University of Cincinnati, Ohio University, Bowling Green State University and two teams from the University of Akron. 

Miami’s team won the title against the University of Cincinnati at the 2025 NCDA Championship at Cleveland State University in April. They clutched their 22nd win of the season. 

Captain and team treasurer Ty Keller said of the team, “We’ve got a lot of contributions from everyone, it’s not just like one or two players that have been the reason we have been good, it’s been the team.” 

But it wasn’t always that way. 

According to Kaleigh Demeter, the team’s social media manager, a few years ago, the team had a “really intense rebuild.” 

“Ty’s freshman year we could barely scrape together a full roster.” Demeter said. “This year, our retention is really good, and we’ve got a lot of rookies that are really dedicated to the team and dedicated to the sport and we want to learn and want to be taught.” 

Keller joined dodgeball in the second semester of his freshman year after a friend on the team asked him to fill in so the team could have enough people to compete in the Ohio Dodgeball Cup. He learned the rules in the car on the way to the tournament – the team’s second biggest. 

According to the NCDA, a game consists of two 25-minute halves, with twelve starting players on each team. A player is out if they’re hit by the ball or if they block the ball and it still hits them. If a player throws a ball that’s caught by the other team, the player is out and the person who caught it may bring a teammate back into the game. If someone steps out of bounds, they’re out. 

To score a point, a member of the opposing team must be eliminated. The team with the most points at the end of the 50-minute duration wins.

Dodgeball wasn’t on Demeter’s radar when she was looking for activities to join at Mega Fair, a fair hosting hundreds of student organizations, until a member of the executive board jumped out at her and encouraged her to sign up. 

Quickly, the sport became something she ate, slept and breathed. 

“I got banned from talking about dodgeball when I went home for the summer last year,”  Demeter said. 

But dodgeball didn’t come without its challenges for her. Only two weeks into playing, she broke her wrist, which she continued to play on for eight weeks until she got surgery. 

Once the recovery period was over, she got right back into playing. 

While Demeter’s injury is more unique for the sport, common injuries both Keller and Demeter see are concussions because the NCDA uses 8 1/2-inch rubber balls, which differ from other leagues that use foam balls. Keller has also seen injuries that have built up over time, including in the arms, elbows and shoulders. 

Miami’s team practices mainly by scrimmaging, while stopping to focus on certain skills. 

“If there’s something we need to work on relating to our strategy, how we play, we might stop practice, talk about it, then we’ll go in, we’ll do a little drill, get the strategy down and then we’ll go back to playing” Keller said. 

While both Keller and Demeter are unsure if they will continue the sport after they graduate, dodgeball has been formative to their college experience. 

“It’s something that I hammered into my college experience and everybody who knows me knows Miami dodgeball,” Demeter said. 

Keller said, “My hope for the team is that the foundation we built the last two, three, four years will continue to grow. That this year, these last two years aren’t just kind of like a fluke, that we had a really good two years and then we go back down to being a mediocre team. 

“I hope … the foundation that we built will continue to be there for 10 years after,” he said.