Web Update: Hawaii Club upsets TI for dodgeball championship

A dodgeball tournament full of upsets and intriguing storylines came to an end early Friday morning when the Hawaii Club upset Tiger Inn to claim the championship.

Hawaii Club won the Medium Teams bracket, having knocked off Fencing in the bracket finals. In the semi-finals, Hawaii Club faced Global Zero, a new campus group dedicated to the cause of nuclear disarmament. Global Zero was the winner of the Small Teams bracket. Despite using a "No more nukes!" chant to galvanize its members, Global Zero fell to the Hawaii Club.

On the other side of the bracket, TI faced Football. The match was one of the most riveting of the day, and ended in a three-on-one showdown. Though Blake Clemons, a cornerback on the football team, dodged quite a few bullets, he was eventually hit in the thigh.

It appeared that TI had the edge in momentum going into the finals. But the Hawaii Club was unintimidated. Instead of playing it safe, the team came out aggresively and quickly built a comfortable lead. TI did mount something of a comeback. In the end, the Hawaii Club held a three-on-one advantage and capitalized quickly to take the title.

TI won the Huge Teams bracket, knocking off 2008 champion Cap & Gown Club in the finals. Cap appeared to be on its way to victory largely from having significantly more players. But the complexity of the match was dramatically altered when the referees stopped the match due to excessive cheating by both teams. Upon restart, both teams were reduced to 10 players each, and TI came away with the victory.

Football won the Large Teams bracket, knocking off Men's Track and Basketball, the defending champion, in the process.

Hawaii Club's run to the finals was rather straightforward at first. One might have even argued that the team was largely untested in its run to winning the Medium Teams bracket. The team benefited greatly from the first major upset of the tournament: Men's Club Soccer eliminated Men's Water Polo — a team many pundits expected to win the tournament — in the second round. Hawaii Club defeated Men's Club Soccer in the subsequent round.

But in the end, there was no doubting Hawaii Club's victories. The team defeated an upstart Global Zero team before knocking off a very talented TI team.

Hawaii Club's victory in the tournament represents the first major surprise in at least two years. It demonstrates the parity present in the tournament. In coming years, it will also serve as a reminder to every mid-major team that anything is possible.