Fall 2019 Dodgeball Championship
The annual dodgeball tournament took place last Friday, and the turnout was higher than ever before, according to officials from the Associated Students of Maricopa Community College (ASMCC). The high level of engagement could mean bigger and better tournaments for the school in the coming year.
“Because we got this good of a turn out were probably going to plan them for twice a semester,” Jarrett “J.D.” Scott, Vice President of Fiscal Affairs for ASMCC, said.
Six teams competed to win the Mesa Community College Fall 2019 Dodgeball Tournament. They were: the Asian Pacific Islander Collation (APIC) Dragons, APIC Serpents, Math Club, Track Team, Adventure Association and Jesus’ Disciples.
“Last year we had a dodgeball tournament that was about a 1/4th of the size of this one,” Scott said. “This actually surprised us. It caught us off guard.”
Some teams were pre-made. Others were thrown together on the spot from a pool of more than 30 eager volunteers. Everyone played throughout the night in a split bracket system which allowed both losing and winning teams to continually compete against one another.
Melody Waddel of the Adventure Association was among one of the students participating in the tournament. Her team was one comprised mostly of volunteers.
“It was just crazy,” Waddel said. “You’d think that the benches behind the Track Team were basically the nose bleeds, but I was sitting back there and I almost got hit.”
Makel Hubbard of the Track Team made an amazing play to take the team to the semi-finals. In a span of less than 10 seconds he ran from the back of the court, retrieved a ball, dodged two others by diving to the ground and sliding, got up and threw the ball back to knock another opponent out.
When asked about how he felt going into the final round Hubbard replied, “It’s going pretty well. We were struggling in the beginning against this one team but we finally came out and beat em. We are in the finals. Hopefully we win.”
The last two teams to compete for the championship were Jesus’ Disciples and the Track Team. Both teams put up a tense struggle to come out victorious, but in the end, Jesus’ Disciples came out on top. Elder Camm Jorgensen made the winning throw to take it all in a tense match lasting nearly 10 minutes.
“Well we’re actually missionaries of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints… we put the team together and ended up playing the Track Team and we took them,” Jorgenesen said. “It was really cool.”
A large factor in the success of the 2019 Fall Dodgeball Tournament was the outreach and organization conducted by the secretary of outreach and inclusion at ASMCC, Benedetta D’Aregenio.
“Special shout out to Bene. She put all the energy into pumping people up for the event,” Scott said.
