Not many Cornerstone students would spend their spring break playing Dodgeball, but one student passed on the idea of going to Florida or Mexico so he could do just that.

CU student Jon-Michael Cake competed in the Detroit Cup in Novi, Michigan on March 6, 2009. Cake joined his brother’s Dodgeball team, which has been playing for the past nine years together since meeting at Trinity International University in Chicago, Ill. He joined because they were short players for the tournament.

The guys chose the name Team Ballstein from the movie “Zoolander.” After the team won nationals five years ago, they met Ben Stiller’s father who played the character Ballstein in Zoolander, and for whom the team was named after. Stiller’s father is an avid Dodgeball fan.

Cake earned his spot on this nationally ranked team. Team Ballstein is ranked third in the nation in the National Amateur Dodgeball Association (NADA) and is on its way to the outdoor nationals in June in Schaumberg, Ill., after winning in the tournament in Detroit.

The Detroit Cup consisted of 16 teams from around the Detroit area. The teams were split into four groups and every team in the group played each other once. Then the top four teams moved on to the knockout round. The top two teams from that round moved onto the championship round.

“I didn’t take it seriously at first,” Cake said.

But he quickly changed his mind.

“They sat me down and said this is serious and legitimate and we are here to win the whole thing,” Cake added.

The winner of a match is determined by the best out of five games, which are each five minutes long or the first team to eliminate all of the players from the other team. Team Ballstein glided through the tournament with ease, Cake indicated.

At the beginning of the tournament Cake sat back and watched his team’s strategy to take the tournament in, but his mindset on Dodgeball quickly changed.

“I hated losing a game,” he said. “I had a lot of fun.”

The next step for Team Ballstein is a warm-up tournament in Chicago on April 18 to prepare the team for nationals.

To personally prepare for nationals Cake plans to play Dodgeball as much as possible here and “think about the strategy all the time,” he said. “I’m really interested in getting a team together here.”

The format for the NADA Outdoor Nationals is different than the usual school “gym” rules. Each team consists of 10 players, six on the court at a time. Each team starts out with two balls and then there is one in the middle, compared to having all five balls lined up across the center of the court.

There are two different types of Dodgeball: outdoor and indoor. Cake’s team will be competing in the outdoor nationals this summer.

“Outdoor isn’t as fun as indoor because there aren’t any barriers so you are always chasing the ball a pretty good distance,” Cake said.

When a ball is thrown it goes anywhere and to get it you must leave the back of the court. If you exit out of the side of the court to get a ball you are out. When outside the court chasing a ball and you get hit you are not eliminated.

Although the team qualified for the NADA Outdoor Nationals before Cake joined the team, he is nothing but a part of the team.

“I’m stoked like nothing I’ve ever done before,” he said.

His road with the team will not stop after the national tournament. Cake plans to continue to play for as long as he can.