Miami overcame a 2-0 deficit to force overtime before beating Cincinnati 3-2 on Sunday in the National College Dodgeball Association championship game at Cleveland State.
“My freshman year, we didn’t win a single game until day two of nationals against an eight-man Kentucky team,” said Max Edling, the RedHawks’ head captain. “Sophomore year, we didn’t even have 11, 12 players come to nationals.
“The amount of growth our club has had in my time here has been so phenomenal. I can’t explain it how crazy this is to feel. If you would have told me four years ago that I would be a national champion, I would not have believed it — in the slightest. It’s just so crazy.”
Edling and Cole Ginocchio are the only seniors from Miami’s one-win season during their freshman year.
Miami graduated a number of seniors before the Covid year, and since then, the emphasis hadn’t been about winning. It was about rebuilding the program, according to Edling.
“We had to get people who wanted to play dodgeball,” he said. “That would just end up with us going to a tournament, and we would be getting smoked. We were literally a team full of freshmen.
“We just weren’t able to compete with all these more talented teams.”
The goal gradually grew the next few years, and Miami won a game in the Round of 16 at nationals last season. The RedHawks beat Penn State to reach the quarterfinals for the first time since 2019. But they bowed out to Ohio State, which ended up becoming a finalist.
“This year, we kind of put a big heavy focus on recruiting,” Edling said. “We got two of our rookies that started for us in the national championship game.”
Edling said Miami wanted to take down in-state rivals Cincinnati and Ohio earlier this season, and the RedHawks did just that prior to entering nationals.
“We beat both of them in a tournament at Cincinnati that same day,” Edling said. “It was kind of like, ‘Yeah, Miami is here.‘”
This weekend, Miami cruised past Saginaw Valley State to advance to the quarterfinals in back-to-back seasons for the first time in club history.
Then the RedHawks knocked off Kent State in the quarterfinals to reach the Final Four for the first time. They had to face defending back-to-back champion Michigan State.
“We just found a way in the second half to beat them,” Edling said of the semifinal against the Spartans. “So, we made our first ever national title appearance.”
Miami was down 2-0 against Cincinnati in the second half of the title game before making its comeback.
“We didn’t have a lot going for us there,” Edling said. “We were able to just get the point in the last minute to tie it.”
Cincinnati had the advantage — four players to one in overtime — and team captain Ty Keller was the only RedHawks player standing. That’s when Keller caught an attack while holding another ball in his hand to get Edler back in the game.
“I knew I had to make something happen,” Keller said. “I made a lot of catches this year, but I knew I could catch it. I knew if we got one catch, we could get a little spark in us to get exactly what we needed.”
“When Ty made that catch, I knew there was a chance,” Edling chimed in. “It was just crazy. It was just a blur, honestly.”
Miami made its overtime surge to capture the state of Ohio’s first club dodgeball title since Ohio State won it back-to-back in 2005 and 2006.
“It was a total team effort,” Edling said. “Everyone even not playing, everyone was able to make it count — shag balls and everything like that.
“I’m super proud of everybody.”
The 2025 Miami dodgeball team — which finished the season 22-3 — includes freshman Joey Dranzik, freshman Collin Stringer, junior captain Ty Keller, sophomore Ethan Schlop, sophomore Evan VanCleave, sophomore Owen Gaeckle, senior captain Max Edling, senior Cole Ginocchio, junior Davis Honroth, junior captain Henry Brill, freshman Ray Moore, sophomore Aiden Willkomm, freshman Jayden Person, sophomore Kaleigh Demeter, senior all-star Dominic Dellapina, freshman all-star Max Boon, junior captain Phillip Hampton and sophomore Dylan Corson.
“It means so much because to be honest, in the league, we’ve just been doubted for so long,” Edling said. “People just said that you only have to worry about certain players and that we played an easy schedule.
“We just had to keep it in house and just control what we could control and just focus on ourselves.”
In the know
Miami’s club dodgeball team was founded in 2006 before going defunct because of an eventual lack of interest. … Kyle Shaw re-founded the club in 2016. … Miami competes in the National College Dodgeball Association and was the third seed in this year’s national tournament. ... Miami finished ranked sixth in the final national poll.
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