Settled on the Courts

This spring, the Associated Student Body (ASB) officers decided to put together a new school-wide athletic competition to bring students together in the form of a pickleball tournament. Pickleball is a paddle sport, resembling tennis, where players hit a plastic ball over a net back and forth to win points. On Jan. 16, an announcement was made through the daily bulletin to inform students that they were able to sign up for the tournament by writing their names on the sheet outside the activities office, with no prior skills required for individuals to participate. While signing up, students were instructed to find a partner and come up with a team name. With a total of 37 teams interested in participating, the ASB officers created a single-elimination-style bracket. In the basketball court area of campus, two to four matches were played everyday during lunch. Each match was played to 11 points, one set, and the loser of each match would be eliminated from the tournament. Senior and tournament winner Isa Bringas shares how wonderful her experience was participating in the tournament. 

“Winning the pickleball tournament was very fun,” Bringas said. “It was great because I got to compete with different players at different levels. My favorite part was teaming up with my brother and beating my friends because they are super competitive.”

While it all seemed to be fun and games, directing a tournament for the school to participate in came with a number of unprecedented challenges. One of the main issues in conducting the tournament for the ASB officers was the weather. Many games had to be postponed due to the heavy rain storm which came across Southern California in early February. Even when there was no rain, many games had to be played through intense wind and fog conditions, making it hard to execute strategies. Additionally, with the massive amount of participation in the tournament, putting 37 teams into a bracket became difficult because there was an uneven amount of teams. Giving every team a chance to play was important, so the ASB officers solved their uneven team number dilemma by giving some teams byes, a direct entry into the next round through randomization. Some other problems arose as several teams also did not show up for their assigned games, but the committee kept adjusting the bracket to have the remaining matches running. Junior and ASB officer Jake Kim expresses his excitement about the tournament and his experience being a coordinator. 

“It was an amazing opportunity to organize the tournament for the school with my fellow officers,” Kim said. “I would have definitely played the tournament myself if I were not organizing it. The high number of attendees is what made the tournament special for us.”

The love for pickleball continues to grow and is even being considered to become an official high school sport by the California Interscholastic Federation. Senior and Commissioner of Boys Athletics Riley Horn describes the positives from the pickleball tournament and why more students should get involved in the upcoming years. 

“I would definitely encourage people to play in the pickleball tournament next year simply because it is fun,” Horn said. “Pickleball is a rapidly growing sport and participating is a great way to get involved with school activities. It did not matter if the teams had experience or not, but many people left the tournament with smiles on their faces, making the tournament a huge success.”