Turf Ball Tournament
Turf Ball is a game created by Stoughton High School strength and conditioning teacher Bobby O’Brien. The game is a favorite of students in the high school strength course and it is frequently played on scheduled game days in the curriculum. Ever since its introduction, students have been running a spring tournament for the past five years and this year it fell on March 18.
O’Brien created turf ball from the ground up, loosely based on the concept of the game Ultimate Frisbee, but because throwing a frisbee indoors is dangerous and chaotic, O’Brien chose to switch to an eclipse ball. Turf ball also integrates running and agility to ensure students are challenged in a variety of ways.
In gameplay, the first person with the ball can’t run or get tagged, but can be blocked when passed to a teammate. That person can run, dodge, jump and throw, but they can also get tagged. If tagged, the ball switches possession to the other teamand it restarts the process. To score, someone on the field has to throw the ball to a teammate in the endzone with at least one foot within the lines.
It’s no secret that turf ball has a cult following at SHS, so in no time, athletes were looking for opportunities to play outside of class, too. The first person to propose a turf ball tournament was a former student named John Harmon.
Now, every year, one senior brings people together to form teams for this tournament, with OBrien as the advisor and everything else controlled solely by the student. This year, the senior in charge of the tournament was Reid Blackburn.
To start the process, students were drafted on March 6 and placed into eight teams of six from a total of 40 participants. The captains were Andy Perkins, Gatlin Empey, Jacob Hibner, Parker Sellnow, Ethan Zywicki, Logan Hedstrom and Blackburn.
Competition started with a regulatory 1v1 match against each team at least once to give athletes a good warm-up and the opportunity to form strategies. After this, brackets were made and the official competition began.
Every match was intense, with players making crazy catches and pulling off amazing plays. Athletes coordinated with matching team uniforms, making it easy to keep track of each team member.
Junior Tyree Steele made an amazing play at one point in the tournament. With three people blocking his view, he managed to jump up and still catch the ball with the whole event happening in seconds.
Devin Rodgers, a member of the tournament-winning team, also kept diving and jumping, earning the most points across all teams.
Everyone else who participated had great sportsmanship and most people had fun, including the spectators. The winning team was made up of seniors and juniors Logan Hedstrom, Devin Rogers, Gavin Reiser, Givon Storkson, Pete Heinecke and Bryce Segerson. It’s safe to say that the annual turf ball tournament is here to stay for the future, but this year was one for the books.
