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Thursday, March 28, 2024
The Observer

Battles on the hardtop continue

After two weeks of long sleeve shirts, tights and Spandex, the Barons of the Blacktop, otherwise known as the participants of Bookstore Basketball XXXIII, resumed second-round play on a balmy Thursday evening. The weather drew a large contingent of female spectators to the courts including senior Danielle Davis. "It's a great time for everyone to showcase their talent and for the girls to come out and scope some hot bodies," she said. But the games, not the bodies, proved to be the main attraction.Getting a jump on their assigned court time, two teams of graduate students met in one of the first games of the day in which Zoidberg and the Technicolour Express benched Bosl's Fan Club by a 21-18 score. The competitiveness of the game proved these two teams are just as passionate about basketball as they are about studying. In the first half, Team Zoidberg led most of the way but never by more than three points. Bosl's Fan Club closed the half with a surge to only trail by one, 11-10.But that was as close as they would get. Team Zoidberg, led by captain Kortny Hall, opened up an 18-14 lead before holding on to win.The two teams seemed equally matched, leaving Zoidberg team member Scott Stolpa confused as to how his team emerged victorious. "I still don't know how we won," he said.With a little more certainty, Hall pointed to his team's ability to get out and run the ball. "We had to keep running on them. I think we tired them out," he said.Varsity basketball player Greg Bosl did have some words of advice to his admiring grad school fans, even though not all team members were familiar with who their team's namesake actually is. "Stay in school," Bosl said, "because they're not gonna have fun next year."In a later game, The Danza Slaps had a rough time - literally - with team Sex, Drugs, and House. During The Slaps' 21-10 loss to House, Kevin Fussner of the Slaps dove for a ball heading out of bounds. Unfortunately for Fussner, his team had opted to be "skins" and his dive left him with a glowing red scrape that covered the left half of his bare torso. An exasperated Fussner felt that his pectoral abrasion signaled a turning point in the game. "Five men, nine nipples - how do you expect to win a game like that?" he exclaimed.Meanwhile, Sex, Drugs, and House was busy winning the game to the tune of their favorite song, "Sex, Drugs, and House." A boombox sat on the sidelines and pumped out the tunes which House team member Griffin Eaton found both sophisticated and inspirational. "We just tried to class up this joint," he said, "[and] all our shots were money."In the realm of the ranked teams, No. 2 seed The Library had no problem closing the book on team Fisted Sister by a 21-5 margin. The Library, led by captain Justin Funk, dominated the entire game from end to end.Sister team member John Bisanz felt that, all things being equal, the game just came down to talent."Other than our lack of height and complete ineptness on the basketball court, [we lost] pretty much because we were deathly out of shape and they are just superior basketball players," he said.After the win, Funk said his team is looking forward with its eyes on a bigger prize. "We better [make the finals], we'll be pretty upset if we don't," he said. "We were No. 3 last year, and we lost in the Final Four so I want to make it one step farther."