Balls flew all over the downtown YMCA gym on Friday night as six ASU teams competed in the Inferno, a dodgeball tournament hosted by the Department of Student Engagement.
The competition was hosted as part of Spring Festival, which took place last week.
“[The competition] is part of the new students and traditions program,” tourism development and management senior Ashley Payne said. Payne has organized the dodgeball tournament the past two years.
The six teams that competed this year, Dodge Ball for Beginners, the Penguins, Dodge My Balls, Balls of Fury, Can’t Touch This and the Downtown Devils, competed for a pizza party, T-shirts and a plaque that will hang in the Wells Fargo Student Center.
“I didn’t think the competition was going to be that big of a deal, but finding out about the pizza party and the extra stuff made it better,” broadcast journalism junior John Peterson said.
Each team played all the teams present in the first round. The next round of tournament was played by double elimination. Each game was best out of three.
Peterson, a member of Balls of Fury, the tournament winners, said his team didn’t practice before the tournament, but team members were confident about the competition.
“Most of us had played organized sports before, so we had that natural ability, but also we were really psyched and took the competition seriously,” Peterson said.
The competition became very competitive toward the end of the night. Teams and spectators watched from the sidelines, cheering for their favorite teams and booing when they felt the referee made a poor call. Teams on the court complained as well.
“I think it was pretty fair, but when people are in intense situations, they complain because they want to win,” nursing freshman Kim Sawyer, a member of Dodge my Balls, said. “When we went to the championship, it got really intense.”
Other competitors, like business and sustainability freshman Nathan Stein, felt it was because of a lack of integrity from other teams.
“Toward the end, a lot of people were trying to pull stuff when [the referee] wasn’t paying attention. They were trying to pull stuff they shouldn’t have,” said Stein, a member of Can’t Touch This.
Despite the problems, Sawyer and Stein said the competition was a lot of fun and both would participate again. As an organizer, Payne was also pleased with the turnout.
“Six teams was way bigger than I thought it would be,” Payne said. “We just didn’t anticipate the numbers as well as I would have liked. It was a little overwhelming at times, but overall, I was very happy with how the tournament worked out.”
Payne also said she was pleased with the team Dodge Ball for Beginners, a team made up of Downtown faculty.
“It’s not often students get to interact with their faculty in a casual setting, so I think this was a good opportunity for students and staff to hang out together,” Payne said.
Reach the reporter at sheydt@asu.edu.
