ADPi, Pike dodge competition, pick up victories

Ellie Smith
@ellieinmilly

Flying balls and fast chants filled the Wellness Center Saturday as hundreds of Greeks packed the bleachers to watch their favorite fraternity/sorority dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge.

The members of 14 different Greek organizations were ready for the 9 a.m. start time, but perhaps not quite so ready to be spending all day indoors.

Originally, softball and flag football were scheduled to be played on the intramural fields, but due to the day-long rain that caused havoc on the tug competition Friday, the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life decided to enact plan B: softball and flag football became dodgeball and basketball.

Fraternities and sororities were paired together before facing each other on the courts in double elimination matchups. One such pairing was the ladies of Alpha Delta Pi and the gentlemen of Pi Kappa Alpha.

“I wasn’t super disappointed when it changed to dodgeball because ADPi had done pretty well last year and during intramural dodgeball,” said Jasmine Krasle, senior marketing major and ADPi dodgeball team member. “We never practiced dodgeball once. The boys were playing fast paced men’s dodgeball and we were playing tactical women’s dodgeball, but once we all talked and started playing as one team we were unstoppable.”

The ADPi and Pike duo received a first-round bye and started their tournament against the first round winners of Kappa Delta/Theta Chi. Delta Zeta/Kappa Alpha also came out of the first round with a win to take on Sigma Alpha Epsilon/Phi Mu in the second round. Both the ADPI/Pike and SAE/Phi Mu teams went undefeated until they faced each other in the third round where SAE/Phi Mu got the win.

After a round 2 loss, the Kappa Delta/Theta Chi came through the losers bracket only to face ADPi/Pike again in the fourth round. Whoever lost this round would be out of the tournament. More than 20 intense minutes later, it was the KD/TC team packing their bags and ADPi/Pike getting ready for the finals against SAE/Phi Mu.

This late in the day and with most of the Greek community eliminated from the tournament, other than the occasional chant, silence and tension filled the moments before the final games began.

Due to the way double elimination works, SAE/Phi Mu would still have to lose twice to be eliminated while ADPi/Pike already had tallied a loss. This meant that if ADPi/Pike lost the first game, SAE/Phi Mu would win the tournament. That wasn’t the case on Saturday.

SAE/Phi Mu is handed their first loss and the two teams prepared to play the final championship game. When the buzzer finally sounded, blue and white pom-poms and chest bumps filled the court. The ADPi/Pike team won the Greek Week Dodgeball Tournament.

“It felt amazing to win, it never gets old. There is nothing like winning especially in front of huge crowds”, junior management major and Pike dodgeball team member Jimmy Shea said. “Once we started dodgeball, we struggled a little and then Jasmine gave us a little pep talk and we strategized more. This is what helped us come out of the losers bracket to win it all.”