Team Maroon Boats battled through the competition to emerge as champions of the Rec Center Intramural Battleship League, claiming victory in the finals after four games on April 23. Team Vsa finished in second.
After qualifiers on April 15, only the top four teams advanced to the grand finals: Vsa finished first with 21 points, Sunk Drivers in second with 19, Maroon Boats in third with 18 and Tight Like Unto A Dish fourth with 10.
With barely any time to recover or refine their game plans, teams dove back into action Wednesday night knowing one wrong move could cost them the title. Ultimately, the Maroon Boats crew was awarded All-University Intramural Champion t-shirts.
That pressure came to a head as the top teams faced off in the final round of the two-day tournament. As teams geared up to start, philosophy senior and Maroon Boats vice captain Thomas Greve noted that the prelims were his first time hopping in a canoe.
“Yeah, this is my second time ever playing Battleship,” Greve said. “So to be in the finals is pretty freaking cool.”
The coed Battleship League was composed of 12 teams of five players, with one person as the navigator and four crew who had to climb into canoes with one mission: sink everyone else. Games last around 10 minutes. Teams are armed with buckets to dump water and trash can lids as shields, and participants splash, bail and balance their way through high-energy matches. Teams earn points by lasting the longest and also by sinking other canoes.
Game 1 kicked off with Vsa taking first place and the Sunk Drivers finishing second. With one canoe already sunk and a first-place finish under their belt, Vsa’s chances of winning the league looked strong. Sunk Drivers faced an uphill battle. Not only had they failed to sink any canoes, they also lost points due to a penalty for illegally grabbing another canoe.
After the incident, computer science senior and Sunk Drivers team member Matthew Speights admitted that the team’s chances of winning the league were slim.
“I’d like to be optimistic, but I think the points are against us,” Speights said. “We got like four or five points for placing second, but we didn’t get credited for any sinks, so we only ended up with probably three or four points because of the penalty.”
Game 2 saw Maroon Boats dominate the competition, sinking two canoes during the match and showcasing their aggressive strategy. The win secured them a first-place finish and a strong position in the overall standings.
Sunk Drivers came out on top in Game 3, securing a hard-fought win. Despite the victory, it wasn’t enough to overcome their earlier penalty and lack of sink points. Their final score left them short of a shot at the league title final round.
With everything on the line in Game 4, Vsa and Maroon Boats headed into the final match. Petroleum engineering senior and Maroon Boats team member Ava Blackburn credited her team’s seating strategy for securing the win.
“Feels insane,” Blackburn said about winning the Battleship League championship. “I think our seating strategy — really having our buckets in the middle, shields on the end — I think it was a strong strategy.”
