By Amelia Smith/reporter
Dodgeballs went flying Feb. 10 in the SE Campus gymnasium as 10 teams and 55 participants competed in the school’s fourth intramural dodgeball tournament.
“zLast semester, we dropped to five teams, and now we are back to the average number,” said coach and intramural coordinator Shahzad Nazir.
The Dodging Donkeys won the best-out-of-seven matches to become the tournament winners.
The matches, which were refereed by two dodgeball experts from Oklahoma, began with the Dodge Fathers and the Angry Birds. With several balls thrown, the Angry Birds dominated the first match.
The second match was the fight between the Dodging Donkeys and the Dodge Ballers. The Dodging Donkeys took the lead after four games. The crowd went wild after game five when the Dodge Ballers pulled ahead after outing the last member of the Donkeys.
By the last game, one player from each team was left. The Dodging Donkeys took this one and headed to the semifinal round.
“I have never played dodgeball before but was inspired after seeing the movie Dodgeball, so I decided to come and play,” said Dodging Donkey Bryan Alvarado.
Match three began with a team ozzf Free Agents and the back-to-back champs from the past two semesters, the Firing Squad. The Free Agents put up a good fight but despite their best effort lost to the reigning champions, moving the Firing Squad into the semifinals.
The Flying Dolphins and the Average Mo’s faced off in match five. Swiftly taking over the court were the Dolphins with their strong, smooth throws outing most of the Average Mo’s extremely quickly. Ultimately, the Dolphins pushed their way through to the next round.
All the losing teams took a small prize home for their efforts, and the semifinal round began. The intensity picked up as the Angry Birds took on the Dodging Donkeys, who quickly took out all but two players from the Birds on the first throw. Screams arose as the Dodging Donkeys attacked their competition and won the first semifinal match.
Brittany Guest/The Collegian
The second match featured the reigning champs, the Firing Squad, and the newcomers, the Flying Dolphins. Equal abilities made for interesting matches between these two teams. The Dolphins lost a player because of an ankle injury in the second-to-last match, but that didn’t stop them from defeating their champion opponent sending them into the final.
The Dodging Donkeys and the Flying Dolphins were both powerful in the final with lots of strong arms. The Dolphins took an early lead by grabbing all of the balls off half-court first.
The championship came down to the last game — both teams tied one to one, and the clock ran out. The teams went into sudden death as one player from the Dodging Donkeys and one player from the Flying Dolphins faced off with two balls and no time limit. After a few minutes of throws and misses, Dodging Donkeys Raul Alvarez won the game for his team making the Dodging Donkeys the winners.
“I was really tired and sore during the sudden death match but excited to think I could win this for my team,” Alvarez said.
