First dodgeball tourney a hit
A scene of pandemonium broke out Wednesday evening in the HPER building as 16 students began throwing objects at each other at high speeds.
By the time the melee had subsided, one team had emerged victorious as the winners of Utah State University’s first ever dodgeball tournament.
Four teams, each made up of four members, competed in the double-elimination event held in an upstairs gym in the HPER building.
The competition was presented by the university intramural department as a part of the Week of Welcome festivities.
In the end, a team consisting of one sophomore and three freshmen, all from Layton, came up with a narrow victory in the championship match.
The winning team was made up of John Fleshman, Alex Mertlich and Skyler Knowlton – all freshmen – and Steph Hermansen, a sophomore.
“We played together every week over the summer,” said Hermansen. “We played in tennis courts, church gyms, wherever.”
All that practice appeared to have paid off as Hermansen and company defeated the second-place team in two straight matches to claim the championship.
They had lost one match in earlier tournament play and therefore had to win twice in a row against the second-place team, which had not yet lost a match.
Hermansen’s team won the first of the final matches two games to one (matches were played in a best-of-three format). This set up a final deciding match. Each team won a game, which meant that whoever won the third game would be the champions.
In the final game, Fleshman was soon the only member of his team who was not out. One of Fleshman’s opponents threw a ball that appeared to knock another ball from his grasp, which seemed to indicate the game had ended.
Under dodgeball rules, a player is allowed to deflect oncoming balls with a held ball, but if the ball is knocked out of his hands, he is out. Fleshman said he had dropped the ball on purpose and was ruled still in.
The tournament was a one-time event put on for the Week of Welcome, but there are plans for future USU dodgeball tournaments.
“It’s been huge across the country, so we thought we’d try an intramural dodgeball tournament next semester,” said Cornell Brown, the intramural department staff member who was in charge of the event.
Judging by the enthusasm the players exhibited Wednesday and the nationwide surge in popularity the sport has recently enjoyed, future dodgeball tournaments at USU will probably be quite successful.
“I think everyone here had a lot of fun today,” Brown said.
-dfelix@cc.usu.edu