ALL SMILES: UCSI’s dodgeball team – Devil’s Duke – posing for a group shot after bagging bronze medals in the World Dodgeball Invitational 2013 in New Zealand.

WINNING GRIN: Captain of UCSI’s dodgeball team – Devil’s Dukes – Robert Ng Chee Keong, who was recognised as the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the Malaysian team, strikes a pose for the camera after the World Dodgeball Invitational 2013 in New Zealand.

The year 2012 saw the UCSI University (UCSI) dodgeball team (male) – namely, Devil’s Duke – emerge as champions of the National Dodgeball League (NDL) in Malaysia. 

This win caught the eye of the Malaysia Association of Dodgeball (MAD), which eventually led the team to represent the country in the World Dodgeball Invitational 2013, held in Queenstown, New Zealand. 

Organised by the World Dodgeball Federation (WDBF), the tournament saw contestants from countries like the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia. 

To ensure they were fit for the international tournament, the team spent several months – thrice a week – undergoing tough fitness, mental and muscle training. 

In the blink of an eye, the day before the tournament arrived and the team participated in friendly matches against teams from New Zealand and Canada. 

During these friendlies, the UCSI team lost due to unfamiliarity and the fact that they had a wall behind them, which caused all thrown balls to bounce back towards the opponents. 

But all in all, the matches provided the team with opportunities to better gauge their game play and style, as well as analyse other teams and form more strategies. 

The tournament day finally arrived and the team found themselves competing against teams in the following order: New Zealand followed by Canada, Australia, Hong Kong and lastly, the United States. 

According to team captain Robert Ng Chee Keong, the team started off feeling intimidated by the New Zealand team. 

“Putting aside our fear, we did our best to play the game at our pace and managed to pull through to win the game against New Zealand, with a score of 5:2,” he grins. 

However, he points out that the second game – against Canada – was tough and the team felt they were fighting a losing battle, with an initial score of 0:4. 

“We calmed down and studied our opponents’ weaknesses, and finally managed to catch up some although we lost the game at 4:7.” 

Despite losing the game against Canada, the team was happy that they had not gone down easy, even seeing worry on their opponents’ faces as they thought they might be on the verge of losing. 

The next two games – against Australia and Hong Kong – were easy wins, with UCSI’s team scoring 8:5 and 8:4, respectively. And the defining moment for the team was their win against the defending champions from Hong Kong. 

In retrospect, the team lost tragically to the Hong Kong team when they dropped by for a friendly match in November last year. 

Nonetheless, Ng notes that the full squad was not present for the Hong Kong team and the game was relatively new to the Australian team. 

It was soon time to battle it out in a finale against the team from the United States – by far a game that would be most crucial and intense as it would determine the team’s placing in the finals. 

At that point, Ng was sure that they had at least third place firmly in their pocket but truly wanted to be in the finals. 

“We gave our all in the game and I toughed it out one-on-one with a US player for about 12 minutes in one of the rounds,” he says. 

“Unfortunately, the referee was not on my side and the ball thrown by the US player – a dead ball –was called a hit.” 

Mentally, the team was constantly challenged and struggled to score at least a point; in the end, they did but lost the game at 1:6. 

This concluded the game and the team bagged bronze medals for third place. Ng was also recognised as the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the Malaysian team. 

Message from Robert Ng Chee Keong, captain of Devil’s Dukes: 

“We hope this win has brought great pride not only to our country but also to our University, which has generously supported us for the tournament. From this competition, we observed that our opponents were mostly experienced veterans in the game and possessed great strength in throwing, dodging and catching. 

As for us, we were tactically strong and not to mention the obvious, we were generally much younger than them and still have many years ahead of us to improve and train. Overall, we were fortunate to learn the game at a different level and gain formidable experience. 

For our future plans, we endeavour to continue our training sessions and to focus on fitness and strength training such as drills and agility training. We will also continue to organise more friendlies and participate in open competitions to gain more experience. 

As such, we hope that we will have more opportunities and support by UCSI to participate in the NDL in March 2014. We will then be able to represent Malaysia again in the World Dodgeball Invitational 2015, which will be held in Las Vegas, United States. 

Last but not least, we would like to extend our gratitude and heartfelt thanks to UCSI for sponsoring us and for their continuous support. We would also like to thank Asst Prof Sylvester Lim and Mr Chang Hau Shen for their efforts on the sponsorship and looking after us throughout the trip and promoting greater awareness of UCSI’s Dodgeball Club and our team on campus. Finally, we would like to also extend a big thank you to Mr Mohamed Hafizi for making airport transportation arrangements for us during wee hours of the morning.”