Intramural Sand Volleyball: Serving CCU by Setting the Example
Before each fall semester lies the much-anticipated moonlight volleyball, where incoming freshmen get to experience community bonding with their pod or stairwell, and upperclassmen show their true competitive colors as they battle to stay up the latest for the moonlight championship. But once the chaos of the tournament subsides, there is a second chance for every team that did not experience a victory, the sand volleyball intramural season.
In the 2024 fall semester season, each game of intramural volleyball takes place on CCU’s own sand court right beside the row for the men and outside Rockmont Hall on the lawn for the women. Each game is refereed by a CCU student on the intramural staff and takes place after classes throughout the week. The games are played in three sets of twenty-five, twenty-five, and fifteen. The winner of two out of the three sets wins the match.
The games themselves bring out the competitive nature in the students but also provide a sense of relief and fun to an already stressful academic day. Freshmen all the way up to seniors are able to create a team with their friends or recruit their top prospects so that they might be able to not only have fun but hopefully walk away with a win in the process.
The only thing better than getting to play sand volleyball after a long day of classes is choosing a winning team name for your squad. Sometimes the name just has more talent than the players themselves, but the names are always entertaining, a few stand out names on the court this year are: Whiff Wizards (pictured above), Blokmont Pro, and You Got Served. Each year the names get noticed more than the actual players at times. Whether this is because the team is better at making a team name than actually playing volleyball is up for speculation, but the best teams who come to compete are those who have mastered their craft, and team name, over a few years of hard-fought intramural sports.
Typically, the upperclassmen walk away with the most wins since they have been around for a few seasons. Keeping the same team is a benefit because it creates team chemistry and friendships along the way. However, some teams decide to make a new team each year with different players to see what will produce the most wins. Either way, it is important to enter the season with the understanding that the games will have their ups and downs, but the team you choose will be there regardless if you win or lose. That being said, sportsmanship is always necessary in these games, however there can be heated moments that bring out a more competitive side of the players. This is when the rest of the team must have that players back so that the games can be kept fun and light-hearted and never more serious than it was meant to be.
Seniors always have a more stressful time on the court than the rest of the students for a few reasons. The first being that they are the seniors of CCU and typically carry a target on their back. If an underclassmen team manages to defeat the seniors, then their team just gained more motivation to beat any other top-tier team. Another reason, and the most prominent reason, is that this is the last year for the seniors playing CCU sand intramural volleyball. Achieving a victory in sand volleyball intramurals not only gives your team the title of champions but also an exclusive free T-shirt for that season.
Whether you compete in intramural volleyball to relive your high school athletics dream, the free T-shirt for the champions, or just to take a break from academics with your pod mates, the main goal of sand volleyball is to have fun and create memories with your team until the cold weather comes and moves CCU into its next intramural season.
Now, take a look at these behind-the-scenes practice shots of one of our current intramural teams, the Whiff Wizards!
Photography by Sarah Elders
