Welcome back to our final edition of the circuit of Block 3. Oh wow, how the time flies. We are now coming up on five blocks left of our senior year. And while we are sick over that fact, we couldn’t finish our fall IM experience without learning a little more about our Intramural Achilles heel: Flag Football.
This is a historically male-dominated sport — it’s the only IM that doesn’t have a requirement for there to be at least two girls, if they are the under-represented gender, on the field/court at all times. Now we’re in the postseason and the four remaining teams unfortunately lack female energy. But what they lack in girl-power, they attempt to make up for in varsity team chemistry. Two of the four remaining teams are composed almost entirely of members of the Men’s Varsity Lacrosse Team. Since their season doesn’t start until spring, they dominate fall intramurals instead. Last year, the senior players managed to take home a title in IM Soccer, but we like to think of that as a fluke: this year they’re concentrating their efforts just on flag football, where Director of Campus Recreation Chris Starr predicted an all-lacrosse final between the sophomore team, the Doucheflags and the senior team, Rockets.
On Tuesday afternoon, we sat down with members from both teams to pick their minds going into the night’s semifinal games that would decide the fate of Starr’s prediction.
The Rockets are poised to face off against Chopped Chins, a team of mostly Sigma Chi members. A few hours before the starting whistle, we spoke with Will Canavan ‘27 and Quinn Gordon ‘27. The pair told us that tonight’s game was just one in a long rivalry between the two groups, and we don’t just mean when they’re both throwing on a Saturday night.
But despite the success of the mixed-grade lacrosse team in the 2023 flag football season, they made the decision this year to divide themselves along grade lines. As far as the sophomores go, according to Starr’s prophecy, the Rockets will go on to play in the finals.
Lucas Obringer ‘29 and Harrison Yu ‘29, members of the Doucheflags, had fewer compliments to dole out to their senior counterparts. “Yeah, they’re a pretty raggedy team, honestly,” said Yu, “they kind of just throw, they go out there and run around. We have set plays and schemes that we go by.”
Obringer agreed. “They’re just out there to have a good time,” he said, “we’re out there to compete.” The doucheflags have maintained an undefeated record through the season, and they attribute it to skill as well as mentality.
If it’s the Rockets vs. the Doucheflags, it might just come down to who wants it more. “I mean, at the end of the day, if it’s the lacrosse team winning, it’s great, but it better be us,” said Gordon. “It’s going to be us,” added Canavan.
Interestingly, though, if they won, it wouldn’t be the first time that a team named “Doucheflags” won the football title, as Obringer admitted that the idea for their team’s name came from the rotating screen of former IM champions in the hallway by the office of Assistant Director of the Fitness Center Andy Obringer, Lucas Obringer’s dad. That’s to say, perhaps for Lucas, the quest for an IM shirt began before his time at CC even started.
“My most favorite memory is just looking at the TV in the hallway and seeing all the team names and all the champions,” said the younger Obringer, “I think it’s a coveted item at CC.” It’s a cute story, but for the record, we’re rooting for the seniors.
While we wanted to highlight flag football during this week’s article, if you know us, our one true love is soccer.
We must admit, this year has some of the toughest competition we’ve seen in a while. In the past four quarterfinal games, in both the winners’ and the losers’ bracket, three of those games have gone to a penalty shootout, and the fourth still went to overtime.
Here’s the way it works. If there is a tie at the end of the regulation 40 minutes of play, the game moves to a 10-minute overtime period that is fully played out: no golden goal. Then, if there is still a tie, the game continues to a Major League Soccer style penalty shootout. In one of the quarterfinal games of the winners bracket, last Wednesday, undefeated team Ctrl Alt Defeat lost to the sophomore Sand Jobs. This is where it all gets confusing: then the senior team, the Pookies, lost to abcde FC in penalties an hour later. Well, more like an hour and a half later. With both Sand Jobs and abcde FC in the winners bracket, we knew it was shaping up to be a great game. And that it was. At the end of full time, it was 3-3. Abcde FC took away the win in extra time with a final score of 5-4.
We wish good luck and godspeed to the final 3 teams as they continue to compete. If you’re wondering who we are rooting for — we might have to keep that under wraps.