This has been a unique season for club sports with the Ganus Athletic Center renovation in full swing. According Director of Club Sports Jim Gowen, the 2015-2016 schedule for club sports shifted to accommodate the renovations taking place. These changes in the schedule moved men’s and women’s soccer, softball and track to the spring semester.
The outcomes of the A-team games have shown strong competition throughout the season, Gowen said. With women’s soccer recently coming to a close, large club Ju Go Ju and small club Phi Kappa Delta won the championship for their divisions. According to Gowen, the A-team players have good athletes who show skills of previous play. Senior Hannah Ponder was a part of Ju Go Ju’s championship-winning team. According to Ponder, it took the team a couple of games to get into the swing of things, but after playing Pi Theta Phi three times to make it to the championship, Ju Go Ju stole the win.
“I grew up playing soccer, and I spent all four years with Ju Go Ju playing A-team soccer,” Ponder said. “We won my freshman year but lost sophomore and junior year, so ending with a win my senior year was really exciting.”
Men’s softball resulted in large club Sub T-16 and small club Omega Phi winning the A-team championships. According to Gowen, every tournament has come down to the wire. In fact, Gowen said that most of the tournaments have come down to a winner-take-all contest after the team coming throught the losing bracket has won the first game of the championship series.
Women’s track ended in large club Ju Go Ju dominating the competition with a score of 39. Small club Iota Chi won the small club division. According to junior Mark Claiborne, men’s social club TNT won the men’s large club division in track, which places it at the top in the running for All Club. Men’s small club Omega Phi finished out its track season as the champions of its division.
“The thing that is the most enjoyable is to watch a good, hard, fought-out game against two teams, and when it is over with, everyone circles up arm-in-arm and has a prayer,” Gowen said. “That is what it is all about.”
