The UCLA men’s basketball team won 10 NCAA national championships in 12 years between the 1960s and 1970s. With six titles in eight years, the Grand Valley State dodgeball team is creeping up on that feat.

With a win last weekend, No. 1 GVSU moved its record to 20-0 on the season. The Lakers topped Saginaw Valley State 3-1 in Saginaw.

The match started off in SVSU’s favor, as they were able to take the first point. Senior captain Kevin Bailey attributed SVSU’s early lead to their strategy.

“We are a fast-paced team, and Saginaw had a good strategy to slow down the pace,” Bailey said. “That worked to their advantage. Saginaw didn’t make too many throws.”

With SVSU holding the ball, they were able to control most of the first half and slowly knock out GVSU’s players one by one. The SVSU crowd reacted.

Despite crowd noise, GVSU junior assistant captain Aaron Terenzi said the Lakers were able to block it out.

“We calmed down, focused more, had more intensity and played GV dodgeball,” he said.

Calm down they did. The Lakers were able to even up the score and entered halftime tied 1-1.

Coming out of the half, the Lakers completely took over the match.

“We knew that in the second half, we needed to come out as fast as we could,” Bailey said. “We were afraid to make mistakes in the first half. We needed to be more aggressive.”

A huge catalyst to the Lakers’ success was senior Trevor Nordberg.

Nordberg, who also plays semi-pro for Elite Dodgeball, was able to stick to his role as a hard thrower for the team.

“As a hard thrower, it is my job to really drill them,” Nordberg said. “As one of the top guys, it’s a responsibility to take out their best players.

“It’s like chess, you put your best pieces against their best pieces.”

GVSU was able to rack up two points in the second half and finish off SVSU by a 3-1 final. The victory marks the second time this year that GVSU has defeated SVSU, with its earlier victory coming at home in September by the score of 5-0.

Bailey praised the development of SVSU’s younger players as a big difference between the two matches.

“The first match (Sept. 28), they were missing some of their better players, so they had to play some of their guys who were inexperienced,” Bailey said.

The team will return to action in the spring in a tournament at DePaul University. The national tournament takes place in April.

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