No one told us sophomore summer would be this hard. We didn’t know “Exploration of the Solar System” would meet four days a week and force us to be on call for solar observing sessions at every hour of the day and night. We didn’t know that the Hop was going to be closed, preventing us from adhering to our self-imposed diet of breakfast bombs at every meal. We didn’t know that one leap into the brilliant blue water of the copper mines would leave us with “copper brain” for the rest of the term, barely able to distinguish up from down. We didn’t know it could affect our ability to churn out a hilarious and insightful column in mere hours to regain the affections of our ex (sports editor) Jasmine Sachar ’16.
Even though we’re already worn down by the trials and tribulations of 14X, Hank and Fish swore a sacred oath to cover the most relevant news in sports once a week, and we are nothing if not men of our words. All of Dartmouth had its eyes on one sports event this weekend, the annual dodgeball bloodbath affectionately referred to as Pelt-A-Delta. Though Hank and Fish were initially misled into thinking that we would be able to throw things at hapless Phi Delts without fear of retribution, we quickly learned that Pelt-A-Delta was a competitive dodgeball tournament and the Phi Delts could strike back. The tournament passed in a blur of fear and loathing, but a few moments stuck out to us as important, capturing the ethos of Pelt-A-Delta as a whole. This week, Riding the Pine brings you our firsthand account from inside the tourney. We dropped our press passes and picked up our balls in a desperate fight for our lives.
As soon as we saw Team Abby, fearlessly led by Edward Wagner ’16, jog onto the field for the opening game, we knew the tournament was going to be absolutely electric. After a resounding win, the three-headed DJ monster of Jordan Kastrinsky ’16, Jackson Dean ’16 and, of course, Nick Duva ’16, was forced to briefly yield the microphone to Dartmouth’s premier (and only) summer a cappella group, the Summerphonics. The group provided a much-needed respite from the frenetic EDM playlists, designed to inspire bloodlust in even the most docile dodgeball team. After the performance ended, the pomp and circumstance faded away as we were all reminded why we had made the pilgrimage to Gold Coast Lawn, the Mecca of dodgeball. It was time to play.
In an homage to a past that was perhaps better left forgotten, Riding the Pine reassembled its freshman intramural team. It was a team that only managed one win across three seasons of athletic competition. Our aptly named Sports Team faced an arduous journey through the bracket, by playing the Honey Badgers of Zete in the first round. If we could pull off that win, the Nudle of Sigma Nu stood waiting with the tournament’s only first round bye, a bye they richly deserved.
The game against Zete passed by in the blink of an eye. Balls flew before our faces as the sparse crowd on field two made its preference known by furiously screaming in support of the Honey Badgers. The referees lost control of a game that rapidly descended into chaos, which is fortunately an environment where Sports Team is all too comfortable.
Hank, hair blowing gently in the breeze behind him, seemed unstoppable, snagging balls out of mid air and vitriolically accusing his opponents of “cheating” or “being already out.” He went down in a blaze of glory, and it was only Fish who stood on the field for the post-game celebration. As the dust began to settle, Hank and Fish turned their attention to their next opponents. The Nudle stood Herculean on the sidelines in their matching American flag Chubbie shorts, solidly unimpressed with our all-too-apparent exertion and our comparably abysmal sense of fashion.
Our glorious Sports Team never had a chance. The Nudle mowed us down easily, as if they were trimming the exquisite foliage on the front yard of their fraternity. The gutsy performance of their star players, identical twins no less, forced us to invoke Winklevoss imagery in our second consecutive column. One twin nicked Hank on the finger as he cowered in the background of the game, probably out of bounds. The other slammed Fish with a dodgeball in the one area that he could least afford to be hit. In a cruel twist of journalistic fate, Hank and Fish were forced to watch from the sidelines as their lone remaining teammate, Ben Geithner ’16, fell to the indomitable will of the Winklevii.
We failed to win the dodgeball tournament. We failed to win the hearts of the fans. We failed to get the DJ trio to play the “Cupid Shuffle.” Despite what by all accounts was a humiliating afternoon, Hank and Fish walked away from the dodgeball wasteland with a wry smiles twisted across their faces. Chuckling to themselves, they knew they had pocketed yet another piece of precious click bait.
