At the ‘Beast Coast’ dodgeball tournament in Philly, elite players fought for bragging rights while cheering each other on

On a weekend when World Cup soccer was drawing people from all over the world to Philadelphia, Ashley Elder was the exception. She came to play dodgeball.

“Honestly, it’s amazing,” said Elder, 28, from Vernon, Conn. “I love being able to represent my state. This is history. For us, this is a pretty big deal.”

Elder is one of 217 adult recreational league dodgeball players from Boston, Connecticut, New York, D.C., Pittsburgh, Ohio, and Philly who converged on the indoor gym at Ben Franklin High School in Philadelphia Saturday.

Representing 27 teams, they competed in the “Beast Coast” championship — five rounds of fierce round-robin play, followed by a final four tournament in each of two divisions: one for women, transgender, and nonbinary players and the other open to any player, which in practice was mostly men.

The game is six-on-six, with six balls on the court, and teams win the round after hitting all opposing players with a ball. For the first three minutes of a round, players can use a ball to block one that is thrown at them. After that, no blocking. The team that wins the most rounds within 20 minutes wins the match.

Gameplay in the women’s, transgender, and nonbinary division was intense. During the “opening rush” where players scramble to grab one of the six balls at the center of the court, one of Elder’s Connecticut teammates took a ball to the face, point blank, from her opponent on the Philadelphia team. Elder’s teammate shouted, laughed it off, and left the court.

“Yeah, one tactic is to rush the ball, pass to your teammate, and get that opponent out right away to get that quick advantage,” Elder said after the game.

Recreational league dodgeball is nothing new, and is a popular way for people in their 20s and 30s to make friends in new cities. But one league, Philly Dodgeball, has grown over the past four years as it organized what its promoters say is the premier competition on the East Coast.

In the process, it’s brought in elite players from around the country — Elder certainly fits that bill. Elder played basketball and track and field during high school, competed in shot put and discus at Southern New Hampshire University, and was named an NCAA Indoor Track and Field All-American in 2020.

Elder said that after graduating, she powerlifted her way through the worst of COVID-19 isolation. Once she got a chance to join a dodgeball league, she threw her energy into the game.

What started as a way to stay active and have fun led Elder to Graz, Austria, with Team USA for the 2024 world championships. (The Austrians won.) Now, she is one of 10 players at the Beast Coast competition who is headed to Bangkok this winter to compete for the biennial world championship.

It’s a rare sport, Elder said, where casual players can play alongside some of the best out there.

“If you stick to it, you’re going to get better,” she said. “We want people to have fun.”

Samantha Sayward got her start when she moved to Philly from Boston in 2018 and was looking to make friends. But Sayward said she wanted to play in a league that followed USA Dodgeball rules, which she said are regarded as the standard rules and keep the games competitive and fair.

When she couldn’t find one, she launched Philly Dodgeball in 2022. As the league grew, she formed an LLC and hired three staffers to help run the league. In 2024, Sayward competed for Team USA in the World Dodgeball Championships.

Sayward, who is 35 and lives in Manayunk, said participation in Philadelphia has blown up in the past two years, from about 40 players to around 500.

She said most players are like her, “transplants” to the city in their 20s and 30s, looking to meet people in an inclusive community. Many identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community, she said, and the league hosts a women, transgender, and nonbinary “Lavender League” every Thursday.

“It is one of the most inclusive sports out there,” said John Michael Szczepaniak, 35, a casual player who came to the league after playing dodgeball in the LGBTQIA+-oriented Stonewall Sports. “There’s men and women, there’s every walk of life, respecting each other, cheering each other on. Even though we’re competitive, we’re the most supportive community.”

But as participation grew, Sayward drew on her experiences as a former Navy hospital corpsman and event planner in the nonprofit world to improve the league: Players have jerseys, regulation gear, referees, and a scoring system. There are custom medals. There’s even a commissioner. And that, she said, has helped bring in similar-minded leagues from across the East Coast for the Beast Coast competition.

By midafternoon, Elder and Sayward’s teams were both knocked out of the competition, with Long Island winning the tournament after beating the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia team in overtime.

Still, eight years after Sayward threw her first dodgeball in Philadelphia, the sport has changed her life. Her boyfriend — they met playing dodgeball — proposed to her in Dublin, Ireland, this year, just before she had to fly to Arizona to attend the Team USA combine. She said yes. And then she made the team.

“It builds friendships, relationships,” she said. “All the girls in my wedding, besides my sisters, I met them in dodgeball.”