It is almost eight o’clock at the Redwood campus, a setting that usually would be serene. However, Friday, Oct. 11, conjures an entirely new atmosphere: excitement. Students line up outside of the big gym, each group wearing different costumes to represent their teams, and the echo of voices can be heard throughout the South Lawn. It is not a game or a meeting; it is Redwood Night Live’s (RNL) eighth annual dodgeball tournament.

Run in collaboration between students and an advisor, RNL meets every Friday in room 284. According to junior Ciara Colicci, the event coordinator of RNL, the goal of the dodgeball tournament is to provide students with an opportunity to have fun on a Friday night without the use of drugs and alcohol.

“We’re all about having [safe] fun on Friday. We obviously don’t want kids to go out and drink and do drugs, and these events give kids an opportunity to have fun,” Colicci said.  

This year, 12 teams packed the gym with high hopes of winning the gift card prizes. There was a significant decrease in the allowed amount of participants from past years, where there was an average of 32 teams, according to Jonathan Hirsch, the advisor of the club. The decrease in the number of teams allowed for more playing time for each team.

“For whatever reason attendance was a little less than we expected, but we did intend to try to keep [the tournament] to a smaller number of teams to get [games] going faster,” Hirsch said.

Gallery • 16 Photos

Students race to the center of the court to get the balls.

RNL had to reschedule the game from the original date on Sep. 27 because of a football game against Terra Linda High School. According to junior Michael Danne, a third-year member of RNL, they wanted to support the football team instead of holding the tournament that same night. He believed that changing the date along with the current student demographics may have impacted attendance. 

“I think it might have given some people some doubt on our organization’s credibility, but overall we had a great tournament and it ended up being fantastic,” Danne said.

The winners of the tournament included seniors Ben Rafner, Cameron Gregory, Satoshi Miki, Isaak Kreft and Lucas Roy on a team named Globo Gym. For senior Cameron Gregory, it is his second year winning the tournament and fourth year participating.

“It’s always been a lot of fun, and me and my friends are all very competitive. There’s not a lot of other things like a dodgeball tournament that are this well organized,” Gregory said.

RNL Dodgeball is open for all grades to participate. According to freshman Henry Colwell, although his team did not perform as well as he would have liked, he nevertheless enjoyed the tournament.

“It’s fun that all the teams from around the school got to play and dress up. I’ve never seen that before…I would definitely go again,” Colwell said. 

Despite the low turnout of participants, according to Hirsch, the eighth annual dodgeball tournament was a great success.  

“I think the proof is in the pudding: people are having fun. They’re hanging out after it’s over so they can keep playing. That’s what we want. That’s what this is all about,” Hirsch said.