Volunteer team upsets ‘super athletes’

In a move that has been seen before in this year’s tournament, a dodgeball team composed on-the-spot out of spectator students defeated a heavily favored team during lunch on Wednesday, May 19.

The favored team, The Kooks, was composed of junior Danny Giacomini and seniors James Christiansen-Salameh, Alex Bailey, Nick Schaefer, Delphine Schaller and Adlai Katzenberg.

The team was set to play Man Down, which would have included six sophomores. When complications arose, the original Man Down squad was replaced by the seated students who took the name The Pickup Team. The students in The Pickup Team include seniors Nik Garner, Kevin Ferrari and Michael Gachina, junior Lucas Andrade, and freshmen Ellie Robertson and Hannah Hansen.

The Kooks were defeated after falling behind 2-0 with two minutes left in the five-minute period. A comeback brought The Kooks to 2-1 with 50 seconds left, but The Kooks could not finish and lost.

Dawson said that the strategy of pulling competitors from the audience has not been used in the past when the tournament had more teams, but it has served this year’s tournament already with two upsets.

“This is a new phenomenon,” Dawson said. “It’s been hysterical. … Click Clack Gang got nailed and today the water polo super athletes got [eliminated]. They’re like 6’4″, unbelievable athletes and this little pick-up team ran down and we couldn’t believe it. ”

Dawson also emphasized the drama of the match’s last minute.

“The Kooks were coming back hard,” Dawson said. “They just didn’t have time.”