Sports

Quidditch team flies to improvement

By Vinay Viswanathan  |  Feb 25, 2013
Members of the CMU Marauders, Carnegie Mellon’s Quidditch team, prepare for the start of a weekday practice on the Cut. (credit: Jonathan Leung/Assistant Photo Editor) Members of the CMU Marauders, Carnegie Mellon’s Quidditch team, prepare for the start of a weekday practice on the Cut. (credit: Jonathan Leung/Assistant Photo Editor) First-year Tyler Novet prepares to throw the quaffle into a goal during a chilly practice on the Cut as his teammates look on. (credit: Jonathan Leung/Assistant Photo Editor) First-year Tyler Novet prepares to throw the quaffle into a goal during a chilly practice on the Cut as his teammates look on. (credit: Jonathan Leung/Assistant Photo Editor)

The CMU Marauders, Carnegie Mellon’s Quidditch club team, has expanded and improved in its second year of play. The team traveled to a tournament in Virginia, has held workouts outside of practices, and consistently worked hard all year.

The team is currently 1–4 and plays the majority of its games at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Championships in Roanoke, Va. Season play also included a small tournament at Edinboro University.

The team’s first and only win of the season was at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Championships, in a game against the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

“It was a very important win; it was definitely hard fought and well matched,” team captain Don Hood said. The team finished 15th out of the 19 teams in Virginia, based on factors such as the amount of wins, number of losses, and point differentials.

The team plans on attending one or two more tournaments this year, which will help it in its expansion and development.

First-year Arley Schenker said that the team “improved a lot through the fall semester,” mentioning that the sport is “physically demanding.”

Team practices, which occur once a week in the cold months and twice a week in warmer weather, are composed of drills and scrimmages, and are supplemented by occasional optional workouts.

“The Harry Potter [aspect] isn’t that big of a part of the team,” Schenker added. “It’s [the] actual athleticism that comes with it.”

Still, teams at the tournament in Virginia were served (nonalcoholic) butterbeer, and “someone’s jersey number is always 9 3/4,” Schenker said.

The team helped host the Harry Potter Theme Night at the Schatz Dining Room with CulinArt, an event that served as part of a broader campaign to increase the team’s visibility on campus.

“[We] are in the workings [with CulinArt] of making an even larger version somewhere in the fall semester [and we] hope to host a Quidditch tournament in Pittsburgh,” Hood said.

Giving the team an on-campus presence is a major goal that Hood has for the squad.

Hood said that he particularly wants to “increase the visibility of the team to the athletic demographics.... I want to get the word out that the team is a social group, but [it’s] also a sport.”

The team lost many veterans this past year, but a strong influx of new players helped to balance the loss. As the team attends more tournaments this year, and plans for increased visibility and fundraising, the sky is the limit for the Marauders.