By Matthew Barnes, Sports Editor
Last fall, a new club centered around hitting a yellow ball was started on campus. Junior Zeke Friedeman saw a potential interest in the sport at Asbury and decided to build the group from the ground up. Eight months later, the roudnet team competed in its first national tournament as an official collegiate club.
Every year, the Spikeball Roundnet Association hosts this massive competition in a different location. Last year, it was at Ohio State University, and in 2017, it was held at Mercer University. This year the tourney was on the University of Georgia’s campus in Athens, Georgia, which was an eight hour drive for the Asbury students attending. “It was a lot of fun because we were all in one van, so we got to hang out and bond on the way down,” Friedeman said.
Asbury brought eight students: Friedeman, Zach Webb, Jonathan Waterman, Drew Cooney, Eleazar Wilson, Nicholas Johnson, Elijah Young and Ethan Reynolds. Most of them had played in a tournament before but not a major Spikeball sanctioned event of this scale. They arrived Friday, April 12, but the competition didn’t start until Saturday at 10 a.m. The four duos played for several hours in pool play, an individual bracket and then the club tournament before departing on Sunday.
The Eagles were up against some large Division I schools such as Ohio State, Clemson, Texas A&M and Georgia. There were around 20 schools from all around the country, and approximately 70 teams competed.
The club ended up tying for fifth overall after losing some close games. “Everyone did pretty well overall,” Friedeman said. “There were definitely a couple of games we dropped that we could have pulled out, which can be frustrating, but it was the first time playing at a big tournament for several of the guys, so it was understandable.”
Asbury has developed a strong reputation in the Roundnet community, placing second overall in 2018 and being the alma mater of Peter Jon Showalter, one of the top players in the world. The school certainly has some talented players, and Friedeman believed the team had an outside shot to win the whole thing.
Roundnet Club isn’t going anywhere, and several players are improving their games. The group hopes to make strides before next year’s go-around and hopefully shoot for the trophy.
“There’s definitely a lot that we’ll be working on in the next year,” Friedeman said. “We have phenomenal talent in the club, and if we push ourselves, I feel like we could beat anyone else in the country. I think that seeing some of the other top talent in the collegiate scene last weekend will give us some motivation to keep working on our skills over the next year.”
