UW-La Crosse REC sports recently finished their fall 2014 edition of the “Paddle Battle.” The Paddle Battle is a ping pong tournament, in its fourth year, that takes place in the REC center that has different variations throughout the year.  Wednesday night, Oct. 15, it was the singles tournament and the competition was fierce while the competitors were numerous.
The rules were standard; the first few rounds were to 15 points, with the quarterfinals and on being to 21 points. The matches were played in a series style, meaning competitors would need to win two out of three to advance.  They would switch sides after five serves, alternate table sides at the end of the games and the rule enforcing relied on the players to self- report and conduct themselves in a friendly, yet competitive, manner. This proved to be effective, as there were no issues and the event flowed perfectly with each team reporting their statistics to the main event table after each match.
Carrie Ingish, a junior at UW-L and the Special Events Supervisor, was very happy of the turnout of the event and noted the 41 teams was up by 10 people from the last time the event was held. The signups were held on IM leagues and the presence of a ping pong club on campus helped to draw in the larger number of participants. Ingish also designed the trophy that would go to the eventual champion along with an Intramural champion t-shirt that many students covet.
There were six tables set up on the first basketball court in the REC center and each one contained competitive matches from club veterans to newcomers who wished to give the paddle a shot. Jenny Larson, Sport Club and Events Coordinator, said, “It’s a free event, it’s a good time to get out and hang out and come to the REC. It gets students [in] who might not come in regularly.”
The matches did indeed go from 41 participants with varying start times to maximize the efficiency of how many games were played, but at the end it came down to two.  After an intense match with back and forth volleying, there was one champion.  Gabriel Zwicklhuber, a senior business major from Austria, took home the trophy as the top ping pong player at UW-L. Zwicklhuber was very quick to point out his support of the REC staff for putting on the tournament and gave praise to his opponents for a fun night of ping pong.  Zwicklhuber utilized a unique serve strategy he said he developed while playing at the club level in Austria.
As Zwicklhuber and the REC staff walked off the court, removing the ping pong tables, the event was over just as the night was beginning.  The next special event to be put on by the REC will be a Turkey Trot run that takes place in November and the next Paddle Battle will take place around Valentine’s Day and will be a fitting couples tournament.