The University of Wisconsin-Platteville fraternity Sigma Tau Gamma hosted a double elimination dodgeball tournament Saturday, March 9, at Bo Ryan Court in the Pioneer Athletic Center. Registration started at 10 a.m., and the tournament began at 11 a.m. The tournament lasted just over an hour.
Each team of five to 10 members paid a $30 registration fee to participate. Only five teams, mostly from Greek organizations, signed up for the tournament, but organizers were prepared for 25 teams.
This was the first dodgeball tournament Sigma Tau Gamma has put on and members were positive about the turnout they had. Joey Lapastora, Sigma Tau Gamma member, said he thought that having the tournament on a Saturday morning hurt their chances of a higher turnout rate.
“Students go home on the weekends on a regular basis, and we could have possibly had a better turnout on a week day,” Lapastora said.
The fraternity members said they would like to make the tournament into a biannual event with one every fall and spring semester.
Lapastora said the best part of the tournament for him was the chance to play dodgeball again since he had not played since high school.
Sigma Tau Gamma put the tournament on as a fundraiser for their house. The money that was raised will be used to make repairs and fix up the fraternity house, said tournament organizer Brett Beisbier. The repairs for the small projects like painting, paneling and fixing windows will cost around $300.
Beisbier said he would like to put in wood floors in the house, but the members would need to do a lot of fundraising before that could be accomplished.
The Dodgeball Club helped collaborate with the Sigma Tau Gamma tournament by lending dodge balls and offering two of their members as referees. Alycia Riehl, president of the Dodgeball Club, said she was approached about a month ago to help put on the tournament. The club wanted to help out at the tournament to help encourage people to join the Dodgeball Club, said Matt Bisceglia. The Dodgeball Club practices as a team twice a week for around two hours each time.
The Dodgeball Club won the tournament and split the $70 in prize money between the five players. They said they will use the money to help finance their trip to Lexington, Ky., for the NCDA Nationals competition April 12-14.