After a 1-2 regular season, the Oaks competitive coed 6v6 intramural volleyball team is set to begin playoffs at 10:50 p.m. Tuesday, March 5 at the Student Recreation Center.
The three-man, three-woman Oaks team played regular season games on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. It started off strong with a win but fell in the next two matches.
In 6v6 rec indoor volleyball, all teams play three regular-season games and can qualify for the single-elimination playoff tournament if in good standing.
Forensic science sophomore Mia Rust said she wanted to continue sports from high school, but she was unsuccessful in forming a team right away.
“I’ve been wanting to do it since I was a freshman because I knew that there were intramurals from MSC Open House,” Rust said.
At the end of the fall 2023 semester and after playing volleyball occasionally, Rust and biology sophomore Alex Wang said they had the idea to put together a recreational volleyball team.
“We ended up finding more and more people to end up playing together and practicing together every so often,” Wang said. “So I kind of just wanted to join or create a team to just like, have the experience of playing competitively against other people.”
Many coed volleyball teams come up with silly names for their groups, Rust said, but she had a more spontaneous approach.
“There were a lot of trees where I was sitting, so I was just looking and I needed a name … ‘Oaks,’” Rust said.
Special education freshman Leah Lewis said she had to recalibrate her style of play from high school or playing on an all-woman team.
“It’s definitely different from playing women’s volleyball because we play with the net taller than what women’s [teams] play with,” Lewis said.
The Oaks team members all agreed that intramurals are important because it offers students the opportunity to interact and build community while in college.
“I think intramurals is a good outlet for people to find a way to, like, play a sport that meant a lot to them in high school or find another way to work out,” Lewis said.
Hannah Murphy is a journalism sophomore and contributed this article from the course JOUR 359, Reporting Sports, to The Battalion.
