Intramurals off to bouncing start
Campus Times
October 17, 1997
As the students at the University of La Verne walk into the Student
Center, they might see a few people playing ping pong on the brand new tables.
What they might not know is they might be watching a heated battle between
two hard core ping pong athletes in one of the first intramural tournaments
of the year.
The tournament began on Sept. 26 and consisted of 16 competitors. After
two weeks of tournament play, the competition is starting to thin out.
The University's Intramural Coordinator, senior Matt Durant, said, "I'm
putting it on the players to get their times set up. The school is small
enough to where everyone knows everybody."
Because there are times when people do not know who they are playing,
Durant tries to supervise so the tournament play can keep moving. If it
appears someone is not showing up to their agreed time, Durant says he has
no qualms about disqualifying them.
Each competitor must win two out of three games to 21 and win by two
points. The quarter finals in the top bracket were played on Tuesday, Oct.
7. Junior Chris Peterson squared off against senior Brian Zavala to determine
who would advance into the semi-final round against senior Michael P. Bailey,
who had advanced to the semi-final with a 21-8, 7-0, 21-18, 7-0 victory.
Peterson handily beat Zavala in the first game, 21-12. However, the
second game would not prove to be so easy for either competitors. Peterson
began the first game slow and quickly dropped nine points to Zavala. After
being up, 9-3, Zavala allowed Peterson to inch his way back into the game
to eventually tie the score at 15-15. From that point on, Peterson would
hold on to and eventually win the second game by two points, 21-19.
After losing the match, Zavala said, "I thought I was going to
be able to make it to the third game. There were a lot of shots that could
have gone either way."
Peterson said, "I just needed to settle into my game...The person
who made the least unenforced errors won the game."
Peterson went on to challenge Bailey in the semi-final. Peterson won,
21-9, 7-0.
The lower bracket is moving much slower than the top. After receiving
a quarter final bye, junior Ordell Williams is waiting to play the semi-final
round as soon as the opposing bracket catches up.
The winner of the tournament will receive a new, high quality ping pong
paddle.
"This lets people know there are intramural activities and that
it is not just for fun but you can actually win something," said Durant.
Durant is in the process of planning a foosball tournament and also
plans to have the ping pong champion from this semester face off with next
semester's champion in a ping pong grand championship.
