On Feb. 15, RA Allison Isaac, a senior tennis player who was awarded the 2023 All-Conference Team, hosted a futsal tournament in Sorgenti Arena. Ali realized that students like playing soccer in Sorgenti so she ultimately decided to integrate a tournament where campus wide students can enjoy some friendly competition.
The tournament consisted of four teams of five players and four team captains from different athletic teams that consisted of track and field, basketball, tennis, and of course soccer. Rebbecca Dalton was the captain of “Team Becca” representing track and field, Alejandro Redondo Cyback was the captain of “Team Alej” representing basketball, and Diego Cruz was the captain of “Team Diego” representing soccer. The later entry of the fourth team consists of two captains, both tennis players Pedro Vincente and Claudia Rasilla, who represented tennis.
The setup for the CHC Futsal tournament is to have all teams play five-minute games against each other at least once to determine the seeding and bracket. The winners of the tournament receive five “Griffin Points”, school currency that allow students to buy things on campus.
Team Alej went 3–0 before seeding and led his team to multiple victories. The 6 ‘8 basketball player averaging 12 points and 8 rebounds plays a lot of futsal in his free time. His team consistsed of other soccer players like Juan Molina and students who are not on sports teams like Matthew Taylor, president of the CHC soccer club. Taylor says, “any sport is easy to learn when you are an athlete just takes time.”
Team Diego went 2–1. Their one loss came from Team Alej in a match that went into sudden death. Team Diego is a mixture of other soccer players like Santiago Linares, and Gabriel Matute. The other players on the team consist of volleyball team’s libero Natalie Albin and all conference tennis player Elena Arenas. Arenas showed she can be a great defender and served as the teams dominant goalie the entire tournament. Arenas has said, “she may have interest in trying out for the soccer team”.
Team Becca went 1–2. Their one win was against Team Pedro and Claudia. Team Becca’s team has a few athletes in different sports. Becca is a long-distance runner for the track who’s playing alongside Michael Lopez, a thrower on the team. Team also consists of her roommate Anna Sanverdine, a soccer and lacrosse player at CHC, and Terrance Doe, sophomore soccer player. Though Team Becca enjoyed the competition so much they wanted multiple rematches with Team Diego. Sanverdine said on multiple occasions “We can play them even after the tournament is over”.
Team Pedro and Claudia went 0–3. The players on this team were made up on the spot. Pedro and Claudia were joined by another fellow tennis player in Lilian Bandel and two freshman soccer players Shaina Klos and Jimmy Paz. Their team dynamic was all over the place, but they did almost beat Team Alej ultimately leading to yet another game to go into sudden death. Though the team was made up on the spot, Claudia enjoyed herself a lot. Coming down just to be a viewer she found enthusiasm to be a part of the event.
The championship round winners that came out on top was Team Diego who took down Team Alej in a super game. The final game had 10 minutes of play instead of five and had a final score of 3–2. The championship game also went into sudden death for a significant amount of time. Ali tried to speed the game up with added free penalty kicks, but the players just wanted to keep playing to find the winner. Team captain Diego got a long pass from Santiago and scored the game winning shot getting his team the win.
RA Ali enjoys having sport themed events that have big attendance, later in March she’s looking forward to hosting a march madness basketball tournament since the basketball season will be coming toward a close.
