You hear the word kickball, and your thoughts turn to elementary school, to booting that big, brownish-red ball around at recess with your friends.

You’re not thinking of kickball, at least not the way it’s played by guys like Joe Spofford, Matt Dwyer and Dan Huber.

Spofford, Dwyer and Huber, Waterville natives all, take their kickball seriously. All in their late 20s and living in Washington, D.C., they and their kickball team, the Other Shot Callers, recently won the world kickball crown at the World Adult Kickball Association championship in Las Vegas. Sixty teams participated in the tournament, Spofford said.

Spofford’s brother Josh also plays on the team, but he was unable to attend the tournament.

In beating Panik Attack, a Viginia-based team, 5-1 in the championship game, the Other Shot Callers won $10,000. Each of the 17 members took home $500, and the rest will go toward a victory party.

“I’ll tell you, it was nice having an extra 500 bucks in my pocket in Vegas,” Spofford said.

When they moved to Washington, Spofford and Dwyer became involved in a kickball league through one of Spofford’s coworkers. What started a few years ago as a way to kill time after work quickly became a serious pastime. Spofford, who played Division I soccer at the University of Rhode Island, started sizing up new coworkers for the coed team. Who looked athletic? Who looked fast?

“I really go for soccer players, just because they tend to be fast and can kick,” Spofford, 27, said.

Spofford is a sales manager with United Way’s promotional products. Dwyer, a University of Maine graduate, works for a merchant marine union handling government affairs. They’re always on the lookout for new talent to recruit.

Kickball at the adult league level isn’t just about who can boot the ball the farthest, although that has its place in the game.

“A long kick is 60 or 70 yards,” Spofford said. “Sometimes people will get a hold of it and just crush it.”

Since the corner infielders can’t cross an imaginary line that goes from first base to third until the ball is kicked, bunting is an important strategy. That is why it’s important to have a quick catcher, like Spofford, who can pounce on the ball and get it to first base in a hurry. Naturally left-footed, Spofford will occasionally kick the ball to first base for an out.

“I’ll do that only as a last resort,” he said.

It’s important to have a pitcher, like Dwyer, who can throw the ball hard but put a little English on it, too. The strike zone extends a foot to either side of the plate, plus a foot up from the ground. The ball must bounce at least twice on the way to the plate, and Dwyer’s best pitch is a hard slider or sorts that starts left and cuts right.

“Ideally, the second bounce is right near the plate,” Dwyer, 27, said.

“He’s a workout machine,” Spofford said of his ace. “We didn’t know where he was going to play at first, but now he’s one of the hardest throwers I know.”

Before he and Spofford joined the team in Washington, Dwyer figured it had been years since he played kickball.

“It had to have been at the Albert Hall School in gym class,” Dwyer said.

Although they were neophytes that first season, in 2008, the team did well enough in D.C. to earn a trip to Las Vegas and the championships. They made it through the pool play, then they got crushed.

“We were in way over our heads,” Dwyer said. “That’s when we got the competitive bug about it.”

Games are five innings, and at nationals, teams play as many as eight games in a day. The little plays, like defending a bunt properly or running the bases well, can mean the difference between a loss or coming home from Vegas a national champion.

Last year, the Other Shot Callers lost to Panik Attack in the national championship game in extra innings.

“This year, we came out and really handed it to them,” Dwyer said.

As winners, the Other Shot Callers where given a limo ride to the Vegas Strip. That alone made winning the world title sweet. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, unless you’re a world champion and you’re screaming from the open moon roof of a limo as you cruise the Strip.

Spofford and Dwyer are looking forward to defending the title. They’ll continue to play in a couple D.C. kickball leagues to prepare. There’s a tournament early next year in south Florida. The Other Shot Callers might enter.

“If we can pull a good enough team together, we’ll go,” Dwyer said.

From rec league novices to world champs in just a few years. Ain’t that a kick?

Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242

tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com