3v3 Ball Tournament a Success
After ripping the ball from the hands of an opposing player, post-graduate Evan Crawford sprints up to the free throw line and lobs the ball toward the basket. The ball hangs in the air for a second and post-graduate Kyle Daugherty catches it and throws it down for an alley-oop, followed by a resounding chorus of claps and “oohs” and “aahs” from the gathered audience.
The 3 vs. 3 Student Council (StuCo)-hosted basketball tournament occurred on Tuesday, the night before Climate Action Day. With minimal homework due Wednesday and a late check-in, students enjoyed a competitive, yet fun, tournament of exhibition basketball. A total of eight teams entered the competition, each containing three or four players and limited to at most two varsity basketball players. StuCo representatives and several varsity basketball players refereed the event.
“Unlike those, the StuCo 3-on-3 tournament’s brackets were well ordered, and they knew exactly which teams needed to face each other.”
The tournament was divided into a losers’ bracket and a winners’ bracket, with the winner of the losers’ bracket given the chance to compete for the highest prize. In the end, the winner of the winners’ bracket came out on top, a quartet consisting of uppers Tommy Cefalu and Ben MacLean and seniors Warren Charleston and Andrew Poggione. In the tightly contested championship match, they defeated a trio of senior Marley Jenkins, Crawford and Daugherty.
There was overall positive reception from the students regarding the event. Lower Grant Cammock was impressed about the organization of the brackets. “Usually, in tournaments like this, there’s a mess of who plays who and who advances,” he said. “Unlike those, the StuCo 3-on-3 tournament’s brackets were well ordered, and they knew exactly which teams needed to face each other.”
In addition to the organization of the event, Poggione, who participated in StuCo’s successful basketball tournament last year, said that despite the late notice of the event, the number of students was enough to make the tournament competitive and enjoyable. “I was a little bit disappointed because last year, StuCo planned it a couple of weeks in advance, so there were a ton of people there,” he said. “However, despite the late notification of the event, I was pleasantly surprised with the turn-out.”
Yet with the organized brackets and the competitive atmosphere, Poggione said that the tournament was a delightful success. “It was one of StuCo’s best events, and I felt like everybody out there was having a lot of fun, even in the midst of a competitive tournament.”