Baby Punchers win sand volleyball tourney

By Dena Adi/sports editor

It was a four-man show April 29 as the Baby Punchers took out the competition one by one during SE Campus’ first sand volleyball tournament.

Eight teams participated with teams needing to win the best of three games to win a match.

Baby Punchers Matt Albright makes a kill against a Vicious and Delicious player during the final match of SE sand volleyball.
Justin Gladney/The Collegian

The No Names and Vicious and Delicious advanced to play each other in part one of the semifinals, eliminating the Hurricanes and Sandstorm.

The No Names looked to be the team to beat early on with their apparent chemistry, but Vicious and Delicious came back from trailing 14-6 to win.

Vicious and Delicious player Omar Benjar and his teammate Jael Almaguer took over the game, using the attack strategy to get back in the game.

Benjar said his team won after the players started serving better and said they would need to continue that to win in the finals.

Meanwhile, the Baby Punchers swept the Purple Angels, and To Be Determined fought its way to eliminate Prestige World Wide to face each other in the second semifinal match.

The Baby Punchers met their match against To Be Determined with both games ending within only a few points of each other, but the Baby Punchers proved too experienced and skilled to beat.

“Our motto is simple,” Baby Punchers team captain Matt Albright said. “Keep our serves up and kill, kill, kill.”

And in volleyball terms, they did just that in the final, winning the first game 15-7 and the next 15-4.

Vicious and Delicious put up a good fight, but the competition shifted toward the Baby Punchers with each player dominating each role.

Albright jump-served with ease, starting each game in control. Fabian Olvera set the shot up each time for Jonathan Herrera to effortlessly spike it over the net. Abdullah Rohaizad took care of defense, and the tournament was theirs.

“It was a very well-played game,” Olvera said after the win. “They [Vicious and Delicious] gave it a good effort, but we came out on top.”

Intramural assistant Ian Ussery was happy with the way the matches turned out and was excited for the future of intramural sand volleyball on SE.

“Seeing as how this is our first sand volleyball intramural due to the new nets, I think it was a great turnout,” he said. “I believe this is the most teams we’ve had in any intramural this semester. It was a lot of fun, kind of a party atmosphere. I think we’ll get a larger turnout in the future as it gains popularity.”