Many Pomona students are sitting around in their residence halls listlessly, thinking to themselves,
“Wow, I’d really like to play volleyball right now!” For those without enough
time in their schedules for a varsity or club
commitment, the intramural system at Pomona-Pitzer is the perfect
solution. Groups of friends can decide to join forces and play together,
and singles enter the world of free agency, eager to find a team and
show Voelkel Gymnasium their skills. With a fairly even number
of underhand and overhand serves, the court sees veterans and rookies
alike—the focus is on recreational fun, but as Tom Trieu PO ’16 said,
“You can make it as competitive as you’d like.”
With no men’s varsity
team at P-P, Sagecocks who played in high school
or just enjoy the sport are limited to intramurals and club for their
volleyball fix; some, like Trieu, do both. He prefers club sports but plays
on his intramural team, Risky Business, because, according to him, it mixes people he wouldn’t usually play
with. There’s no age requirement or restriction per team, so seniors
can intermingle with first-years, and all P-P students can bond in the
spirit of competitive sports and slamming volleyballs towards opponents faces. Intramurals are a great
place to meet and make new friends with a common interest, or just to
get away from it all. Jennifer Lopez PO ’17 says that she
and her team, including many of her spiblings, often practice at Harwood
Court as a study break. Exercise is a great way to refresh your mind and, well, anything beats homework, right? But that’s beside the point.
Tuesday
evening brought the start of playoffs, featuring teams Dynamite, Werd,
Risky Business, GCrew, Pass Set Twerk, and perhaps the punniest of all, How I
Set Your Mother (HISYM). Lopez was excited that her team, Werd,
made it to the postseason, considering it is an all-first-year squad.
The first match was a Sponsor Group showdown. Members of Harwood Bridge,
allied with new friends from Lyon, took on their Bridge spiblings of sixth-seeded Dynamite. Werd, the number
three seed, wrapped up the win in two games with some solid kills from
Thomas, and will play GCrew on Thursday
evening.
To make the playoff process more efficient, Risky Business and
HISYM played at the same time on the other
side of the gym. There are no referees, so line calls are
put to the honor system. And with no official scorekeeper, the teams
share responsibility to know who’s in the lead. Final scores are
reported to Charlotte Fisken PO ’14, the league coordinator,
who is also part of GCrew—a team composed of past and present members of the two Gibson sponsor groups.
Risky Business won its match in three closely-contested games. Trieu said that it was their best
game of the season and they are looking forward to the next round of the playoffs, where they will face off against Clark Attack. For the final game of the first round, GCrew played against Pass, Set, Twerk for a spot in the semifinals. Both teams came out strong, and the two sides exchanged leads early on. However, GCrew, which finished the regular season undefeated, kept its winning streak alive and edged out its opponents in two games thanks to some solid play from Alex Bresler PO ’17, another member of the club team, and Aimee Mori PO ’14. The three surviving teams played again on Thursday
evening, as did Clark Attack—the number-one seeded team that drew a
bye in the first round of playoffs. In the finals late Thursday night, Risky Business pulled out a close 2-1 victory over GCrew to claim the glory
of victory,
and more importantly, the ever-coveted Intramural Champion t-shirts.