Team Victoria’s Secret and the Team Marco Polo battled it out in the semifinals for intramural handball at lunch on Wednesday.
Team Marco Polo, comprised of members from the varsity water polo team, prevailed in a tight game determined by a tiebreaker shoot out.
Handball is a team sport that combines elements from basketball, soccer, and net ball. The object of the game is to score more goals than the opponent by passing and dribbling a ball, and shooting it from behind the boundary line surrounding the goal and goal keeper.
The first half of the game looked bright for Team Victoria’s Secret, made up of sophomore boys, who started off the game quickly with a goal scored by sophomore Brent Zanette within the first few minutes of play. Throughout the game it was evidently a challenge for both teams to score.
“We keep having to do shoot outs, which we need to stop and just score more and win in the regular part of the game,” said junior Mitchell Wright. Team Marco Polo has gone into a tie breaker shoot out in all three of the games they played earlier in the month.
With Wright tying the game at 1-1, sophomore Lukas Kelly was quick to respond with a jump shot to score on the next play, putting Team Victoria’s Secret back in the lead.
Team Marco Polo came close to scoring multiple goals, were it not for sophomore Spencer Stewart being goal keeper. Stewart made numerous saves, three of which were with his feet. He said, “Playing soccer is good for handball because you handle the ball the same way for both.”
After Kelly scored another goal, junior Elias Sebti told his team, Team Marco Polo, to play zone defense, as opposed to man on man. After the switch to zone defense, Team Victoria’s Secret did not score for the remainder of the game and allowed their opponent to tie the game at 3-3.
In the tiebreaker shootout, Wright won the game with a shot through the legs of the varsity soccer goal keeper, sophomore Jacob Segal.
“It was a tough loss, I think they won because it was raining outside, and that’s an advantage for them because they’re swimmers,” said Segal.
Wright took the team on his back, scoring three of the four points to lead his team into the finals.
Team Marco Polo will face the undefeated Super Handballing Incredible Team on Thursday at lunch in the finals.
