This past Friday on January 16th, the Whitney Young Student Council put on the beloved annual dodgeball tournament. Over ten teams participated in the competition and Gym B was packed with tons of students who came out to compete or cheer on their friends. The teams varied in grade level, from 7th graders to seniors, but all came with energy and spirit as they all tried their best to win the tournament along with the prize money of half the pot.

The games were single elimination within a random seeding of teams. With each game lasting only five minutes and a very limited number of balls, tension was high with each match. Last year, the winning team was comprised of mainly class of 2017 members of the boys track team, so while we did not see the same team return to keep their title this year, the runner-up of last year, Tipidis (made up of all boys of the class of 2018), were seeking redemption. The team advanced to the semi-finals, until a surprising loss to the successors of last year’s winners, junior boys on track, although there was questionable foul play involved. As Sophie Ljung (’19) lamented, “Tipidis should’ve won.”

In the championship game, the track boys went head to head with team Franklin and Friends and after a pretty evenly matched game, the boys of Franklin and Friends took home the gold. Members included (all class of 2020)Thomas Stanton, J’Shawn Taylor, Aidan Chapman, Amauri Middleton, Erik Jacobson, Jack Turken, Miles Hart, and Will Stockard. Overall, Chris Nguyen (’18) summed up the event beautifully: “It was a hard fought tournament, but what made it so great was the sense of community of those involved.” Now we can look forward to the dodgeball tournament hosted by the Asian American Club in Spring to see who will be the next team to wear the crown.