Taking photos of dodgeball players?

I have a nikon d300 and i was asked to take photos of some friends playing dodgeball. The lighting isn't that great in building, yet i don't want to use flash and blind or distract them. What settings should i be set to for low lighting and action shots? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Your going to need a fast lens (A lens with a wide aperture f/1.4, f/ 2). Don't use too slow of a shutter speed which is why you should have a fast lens to compensate for that. You know your camera best so you should know how far you can crank up your iso without creating too much noise.iso 400 would be my camera's limit. When editing run them through a noise reducer.

The Nikon D300 takes acceptable images upto 800ASA with the noise / grain being noticeable but acceptable so if you combine this ISO with a recommended F2 lens you should find you get acceptable images.

2 points to consider:

1) Take the light values where the action is NOT where the camera is; practice gives experience which will accumulate and - hopefully - consolidate your learning curve

2) Consider reproducing the images in B/W by post image processing; this will also malke any noise levels more acceptable as well as showu=ing the action better.