Mastering the Paddle: SPA Ping Pong Tournament

 

With a ten-dollar caribou gift card on the line, sophomores and freshmen competed in a ping pong tournament on Monday, May 8. Ping Pong club leaders Rita Li and James Welsh organized a tournament in lower schilling for anyone to compete.
The ping pong table was dragged out of the back physics room and set up for the contestants. Each team had two players, but because of the lack of paddles, Welsh had to improvise so the tournament moved to team singles. This meant that one member of each pair played and switched off after a point was earned. After the tournament was organized and all players had shown up, everyone was handed snacks courtesy of Welsh.
The first game was between team one of Carsten Baur and Johnny Rog, and team two with Otto Rudolf and James Welsh. The game was short and sweet with Baur and Rog taking the victory. The score ended in 11- 5.
The second game was between Tommy Mcgill and Allan Wang vs Bennett Sauer and Lorenzo Good. The second game lasted longer with back-and-forth hits for many minutes. Good and Sour were victorious despite joining the tournament a few minutes before it started.
The game deciding the winning team was between the winners of the previous games: Baur and Rog vs. Good and Sauer. This game lasted the longest with its run time being almost ten minutes. Sauer started off confident and said,

We’re totally gonna win.

— Bennett Sauer

The final score was 11-6 and ended with Baur and Rog taking home the win.

Because there was no reasonable way to split the money on the gift card, the two boys decided to play against each other for the prize. In the middle of the match, Wang provided support to Baur as he was losing and said, “He needs a pep talk, [he’s] losing bad.” Ultimately, the score was a close 11-8, with Rog being the winner.