From February 13 to February 15 Leadership hosted an all-sophomore pickleball tournament in a bracket format. Sophomore Thatcher Grenby organized the competition and repurposed the tennis courts into makeshift pickleball courts. After being “introduced to pickleball at his uncle’s pickleball court,” Grenby was inspired to grow its prominence on campus.
The competition in the play-in stage was played to 7 points rather than the normal 11 points since a substantial 17 teams participated. The first round weeded out the weaker teams and allowed for stronger teams to shine. Grenby noted that “having a good backhand and good paddles allowed for the better teams to succeed in the initial rounds.”
After the first round, half of the teams were eliminated and the matches were played to the traditional 11 points. Many of the teams that won their first round game had been practicing before the tournament. According to sophomore Noah Henry, he and his partner, sophomore Sam Storrs, “practiced at the community center and got destroyed by elderly people.”
This practice proved beneficial as they reached the semifinals before losing to sophomore Luke McLeod and sophomore Everett Zellmer. On their journey, Storr and Henry developed a new play known as the totem pole where one player would stay up at the net and the other would return to the baseline to recover deep shots.
The tournament victors, sophomore Eli Dudum and Leo McDonough, reunited after playing pickleball together in 8th grade and proved successful in the tournament. McDonough noted that the fact that they “were best friends” and had “the team chemistry gave them an advantage.” Dudum’s tennis background gave him beneficial experience with racket-based sports, allowing him to develop a stronger backhand than his competitors.
Leadership’s debut pickleball event successfully attracted a large number of sophomore competitors eager to build or show off their racket-sport skills. Grenby hopes to organize another pickleball tournament in the future saying that, “as far as class bonding activities go, we’ll probably do another tournament.”
