Ben Breidenbach wins Baller of the Year as team chemistry shines

Ben Breidenbach won Dodgeball Club-UWP’s Baller of the Year, the program’s top individual honor, after teammates voted him in as the best all-around player on the court. The award goes to the player who throws outs, makes catches, creates pressure and keeps the team competing, and the same July 1 awards batch also named Tori Sanborn Women’s Baller of the Year, putting both honors at the center of the club’s end-of-season recognition.

Breidenbach’s case went beyond box-score production and into the habits that teammates notice when games tighten. He pointed to how much the roster grew as friends and as a unit, then linked that closeness to the trust that carried through matches. That mattered at Nationals at Ohio University, where UWP opened with its first victory of the tournament, a 5-1 result, before running into UIUC in what the team identified as its toughest matchup of the event.

The award also fits a longer leadership arc. In the club’s 2024-25 season recap, Breidenbach was listed as co-captain and said, “I’m looking forward to having a larger impact on our team both on and off the court.” That larger role is now part of the story of this honor, because the voting did not just reward big throws or clean catches. It recognized a player teammates leaned on when the season demanded steadiness.

Breidenbach said the hard part of the year came after a difficult Day 1 at Nationals, when he helped keep the energy up during a consolation-bracket win that showed UWP could reset and win together after disappointment. That kind of response is the standard embedded in this award: not just talent, but the ability to keep a group connected when the bracket gets ugly and the emotional swing hits hardest.

His outlook for the next season matches that standard. Breidenbach said he wants to take his captain role to another level and help the club keep moving forward so that, when he graduates, the program is stronger than it was before. The 2025-26 roster page places him in the current academic-year squad, and the club’s award archive now puts his name alongside past Baller of the Year winners Tomas Zander in 2024 and Jalen Sims in 2025. In that company, Breidenbach’s win reads less like a one-night honor and more like the latest benchmark for what UWP values most: production, communication and the nerve to carry a team through the points that matter.