After five days of furious play, dodgeball entered its “Sweet-16” stage of competition yesterday, April 30. All of the tournament’s remaining teams competed, and, at the end of the day, only eight teams are left standing.
Lunch saw its fair share of expected advances—the defending champions The Hard Ballerz picked apart the younger 5 D’s of Dodgeball 2-0 while Prestige Worldwide (a rechristened Freshman Phenoms), pummeled Underslept and Overrated 4-0. Both are looking like the teams to watch out for in their respective brackets, and we may very well end up seeing a rematch of last year in the championship game.
However, the more compelling showdowns of the day were what many considered to be upsets, and perhaps no upset was greater than the Average Throws’ hard-fought 2-0 victory over Aim For That Kid. The Average Throws were anything but average.
Aim For That Kid, nearly an all-senior team, boasted some serious athleticism, with football, wrestling, basketball, volleyball and track and field backgrounds. The Average Throws, on the other hand, is comprised of underclassmen along with math teacher Matthew Chaffee and physical education teacher Kiernan Raffo. So far, they have gone under the radar through the tournament.
Aim For That Kid was put at a disadvantage early into the first game of the match-up, with seniors Sami Fakalolo and Sean Lanoza and sophomore Tonga Keti quickly getting sent to the sidelines. Senior Justin Cabute contributed a pair of catches in an attempt to rally his team, but the Average Throws, led by Chaffee, would have none of it. The Average Throws quickly re-eliminated players that stepped back on the court quickly to maintain their advantage. Chaffee pegged the opposing team’s last player to seal game one en-route to the upset victory.
The second game went the way of the first, with Aim For That Kid suffering early eliminations and failing to gain momentum. Heroics by Justin and senior Briham Gonzalez in the closing seconds of the game were not enough to save their team from another loss.
The Average Throws advance to the quarterfinal stage of the tournament and play against Tanks 2.0 tomorrow at lunch.
