The third annual Smith vs. Smith was a neck-and-neck competition between the Smith Hall residents of California Baptist University and rival Smith Hall residents from Azusa Pacific University. APU left CBU’s campus on March 24 victorious; the Smith Hall Cup in-hand.
“I know it’s gonna be a tough one for the guys to swallow, but above all, I think the guys played fantastic,” Jay Stovall, CBU Smith Hall resident director, said. “[They] just played their hearts out, and even though we lost, I’m just super excited. I still feel like we have the best Smith hall.”
This annual competition, three years running, consists of five events, each with a different point value. Whichever Smith Hall ends with the highest number of points, wins.
The planning for the Smith vs. Smith event starts months in advance.
“We spent a lot of time planning, a lot of time working hard,” Drew Pedlowe, one of the Smith Hall residents in charge of planning Smith vs. Smith, said.
Residence Life staffs from both schools collaborated on choosing events and point values to make the games fair, especially after having controversy at last years event.
Many CBU Smith Hall resident assistants and residents claimed the scoring was flawed in 2011.
“We beat them three out of the five events, but they still won,” Andrew Buchholz, CBU Smith Hall resident assistant, said. “I think the scoring system was a little flawed, so we tried to fix that this year.”
This year’s Smith vs. Smith was a close competition throughout and the victory hinged on the last event, flag football. But before the kickoff, residents from each school competed in a series of dodgeball games, buck-buck, ping-pong and Halo.
APU won four dodgeball games and CBU won two, putting APU in a quick, but slim lead.
Each side won a battle buck-buck, which is a game where the residents run and jump on top of a base of other residents to see how many they can pile on.
Then came ping-pong, CBU’s surprise strength. Points were given to the top four players. The first three winners were CBU students.
Just like buck-buck, the Halo video game tournament ended in a tie.
The final event of the night, which drew a large crowd on the front lawn of CBU, was flag football. Stovall said at the start, “The winner of this game takes home the cup, so let’s play some ball.”
The scoreless first half and mostly scoreless second half showed the strong will of each team to outlast the other. APU scored a 6-point touchdown approximately 18 minutes into the second half, leaving little time for a comeback.
APU’s Resident Director, Greg Dolmage, said even though APU has a football team, it did not give them advantage, as none of the players were allowed to participate in the game.
“Thankfully we had a lot of guys who played high school ball,” Dolmage said.
The overall sentiment between the teams was that their main goal was to build unity among their dormitories.
Dolmage said, “The biggest thing that I wanted to see happen here today was, I want to see all our guys come together the way that they are, and honestly, that is the point of the whole deal, and that’s what I get psyched about,” he said. “Of course we want to bring the cup home.”
And they did.
Eddie Muro, former Smith Hall resident, said, “Cup or no cup, praise God.
