Connector Editor

The Campus Activities Programming Association (CAPA) and the Alpha Sigma Tau (AST) sorority partnered to bring the first of many great aquatic slugfests to UMass Lowell.

Armed with buckets as weapons to dump water into their opponents’ boats and storage container lids as shields, a total of 16 three-person teams battled to sink each other’s boats during the first annual Battleship Tournament Friday night at the Costello Athletic Center.

The night featured intense battles in the pool throughout the duration of the contest. After being heavily flanked with water by their opponents, UML Rowing managed to overcome their early obstacles to defeat the Chiefs and Win or Drown in the first match of the first round.

“A couple minutes in, we found that these boats would be hard to sink. We could feel ourselves giving up,” said Patrick McLaughlin of UML Rowing.

The next three-way match included an SS Anchors win over Swimmin’ Sistas and Sabbi Guys by the judges’ decision based on the amount of water in the boats when time expired.

“I swear, we faced a girl with a war face [on], but we had the balls to win it,” says SS Anchors captain Amanda Dubois.

So Cal, Dub Squad and Sheila Strong each traded buckets of water during their tilt, but So Cal came out on top due to better position in their boat, according to Alex Barnette.

Liz MacNeil of Sheila Strong made strategy changes based on watching the two previous rounds, but they did not pan out for her team, led by their captain Mike Stockdale.

“We’re going to put Stocky in the middle, stay seated and rotate the shield,” said MacNeil before her team’s match.

Teams losing control of their buckets, their primary weapon, was a predicament that plagued teams in all three of the matches preceding the matchup between Alpha Sigma, the Annihilators and AST and would continue to do so through the tournament.

“I’m not letting go of this bucket,” said Casey Harrison of AST when asked what she would do to avoid losing it just as previous competitors did.

Alpha Sigma and AST battled hard, but Dezanae Boston-Bernier’s Annihilators came out on top in the end.

The fifth and final match of the first round featured carnage between four teams: Floating Noise, Team Loadholder, Titanic and Jose, named after the team’s captain, Jose Molina.

“It’s going to be a little harder; we can’t team up against anyone,” said Molina when asked how a four-team clash would differ from the previous three-team battles.

The even number of teams resulted in two-on-two encounters between teams late in the round–Team Loadholder took on Titanic, while Jose engaged with Floating Noise.

After coming out of the round victorious, Team Loadholder joined winners of the four previous contests, UML Rowing, SS Anchors, So Cal and the Annihilators, for a five-team tilt to determine the first UML Battleship champions.

UML Rowing was able to rest due to winning in the first round, but McLaughlin did not see that as an advantage. “It was a long, boring rest,” he said.

Team Loadholder, however, felt like they had the upper hand coming out of a four team battle. “I think we’re more prepared because we understand [the concept of] having more people in the pool. For them, it’s a 66 percent increase, but for us it’s only 25 percent,” said Kyle Soeltz.

Nevertheless, So Cal remained confident facing their tough task in the final round. “There are just more people to beat. This should be easy,” said So Cal’s Helder Silveira.

The five-team battle divided into skirmishes two- and three-team skirmishes for most of the round. Contestants flung water at each other harder than in the previous round, with dissenting flurries of H2O in every direction.

In the midst of the action, more bucket problems stymied teams, none more than the Annihilators. Boston-Bernier was stranded without her bucket for what seemed like an eternity.

When time expired and the tide cleared, CAPA judges announced, based the amount in water left in their respective boats, Team Loadholder the winners and So Cal the runners-up.

After watching Battleship unfold, CAPA Special Events Chair Justin McGuire was said he was pleased with the result of his hard work in making the competition possible.

“We’ve been planning this since last summer, and we tried to hold this event last semester, but scheduling problems got in the way,” said McGuire. “But our promotion was big, as we got 18 teams to sign up [with only a week’s notice].”

Heather Jordan, AST’s vice president of community relations, and Laurel Kazanjian, president of CAPA, say they have plans to make Battleship event bigger next year.

“We had a good turnout [from participants and spectators], but we’re going to publicize it even more next time,” says Jordan.

Kazanjian says she feels Battleship turned out as well as the group had envisioned. She believes it was just the tip of the iceberg of what Battleship will become in the future.

“[Everyone who missed Battleship] missed out on a new tradition on campus,” she said. “This was something huge.”