Students Participate in Dodgeball Tournament

  • Ruby Gross ’23 prepares to throw the ball in order to hit someone from the other team. She missed but her team won.

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  • The lollipops cheered their friends while they were playing the game. All of them also played in different teams.

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  • Chris Friedmann ’23 prepares to throw the ball to the other team. After this, Friedmann disqualified someone from the opposite team.

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  • Competitors pose for a picture. Students from all over Round Rock came to play the Dodgeball Tournament.

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  • Evyn Waldrop ’24 runs in order to throw the ball. He came from Canyon Vista to play at Westwood with his friends.

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The big gym was streaked with colorful balls at the annual dodgeball tournament on Friday, Dec. 15. The tournament was a fundraiser for the softball team, and charged $10 per participant. Students, teachers, parents, and students from other schools were all welcome to attend, and the fundraiser had its biggest turnout in three years, with around 200 people participating. 

“The fundraiser helps pay for senior scholarships and upgrading our equipment, travel fees, food, things like that,” Coach Lanea Meyer said. “[It was nice] getting all different kinds of kids in one room for a nice little competitive event.”

The gym was split into four sections, with two matches happening at once. All participants were extremely enthusiastic, leaping into running starts each time Coach Meyer began the games. Cheering and yelling could be heard throughout the gym, especially when there was only one player left standing on a team. 

“I think [the tournament] is awesome and really fun,” ‘Finding Nemo’ member Jessica Li ‘23 said. “The fact that everyone can get together and just play a game in the third-to-last week of school; there’s a lot of stress because of all the upcoming tests [that we can relieve].”

One notable game pitted the ‘Dodgefathers’, a team comprised of students’ fathers, against the “Caraway Crushers”, a team of students from Caraway Elementary School. It was a close match that eventually turned into a one-on-one competition. The Dodgefathers eventually won the game. 

“We’re old, and it was very hard,” Dodgefathers member Gary Marsden said. “Coach Meyer purposely put us up against the fourth grade team, so there was the additional guilt of hitting a fourth-grader with a ball.”

The final match was between team ‘Balls to the Walls’ and team ‘Alyssa and the Has-Beens’, composed of Westwood coaches and Westwood alumnus Alyssa Popelko. The team Balls to the Walls was victorious, and were awarded first place. Alyssa and the Has-Beens was also given prizes.

“Alyssa graduated from Westwood last year, and she now plays softball at the University of Texas,” Coach Meyer said. “So she’s not really a has-been, but the rest of us on our team, all the old coaches slash adults, we’re out here reliving our glory days.”

The softball team will have their first scrimmage at Georgetown on Wednesday, Jan. 30.