Every school year, fraternities at West Chester University compete in a variety of Intramural Sports. This semester, Greek sports participated in Flag Football and Outdoor Soccer. Both sports proved to be a huge success with cooperation between IFC (Inter Fraternity Council) Internal Vice President Skip John and the Recreation and Leisure staff.
The Recreation and Leisure staff controls the rosters that are brought in along with producing a schedule, supervising the event, and putting together statistics and standings for each league.
It’s more than just a friendly competition between fraternities. The contest rises to new levels when the coveted IFC Cup is at stake. The IFC Cup is the total sum of points you earn by playing the intramural sports.
“For example, if you win a sport you get 100 points, second place gets 75 points, and third gets 50 points towards the IFC Cup,” explained Internal Vice President Skip John.
Pi Kappa Phi takes both soccer and flag football titles.
The outdoor soccer season for the Greeks started out by playing on the unlikely confines of Hollinger Field. Soon thereafter, the league was moved down to the brand new turf at Farrell Stadium on Thursday nights.
“It was amazing to get the opportunity to play inside the stadium and on the new turf,” said SAE member Mike Aliotta.
Sigma Pi started off the season on a tear and appeared that could not be stopped going undefeated with a 4-0-1 record. Sigma Pi took control of the number 1 seed while SAE, Pi Kappa Phi, and Beta were neck and neck.
The first match up in the Semifinals pitted number one seed and undefeated Sigma Pi versus Pi Kappa Phi. The smell of defeat was certainly in the air as Pi Kappa Phi upset top ranked Sigma Pi 1-0. The second Semifinal game saw SAE defeat Beta in a shootout.
“The game was back and forth all night but when I realized that I was going to take the last shot, I knew we had it won,” said SAE member Frank Hughes.
The championship game matched SAE and Pi Kappa Phi. The game ended in a 1-0 barnburner with Pi Kap’s Mitch Powers scoring the only goal.
Moving over to the all purpose turf down on South Campus, the evercompetitive flag football Greek league played on Friday nights.
Early on, it seemed that three teams were taking over as the elite teams in the league. Those teams were none other than Pi Kappa Phi, SAE, and Lambda Chi, all of whom were undefeated until a Week No. 4 match up between SAE and Pi Kappa Phi, which ended in a 18-0 victory for Pi Kapp.
“That was definitely a huge victory for us but we knew that we needed to maintain focus with the Lambda Chi game coming up in two weeks,” said Pi Kapp member Mark Cunningham.
The Lambda Chi/Pi Kapp match up also ended up a victory for Pi Kappa Phi who finished the season a perfect 6-0 and the team to beat going into the playoffs. SAE, Lambda Chi and Sig Ep rounded out the rest of the playoff picture.
SAE and Pi Kapp dominated their semifinal games and were prepped to play their rematch game, but this time it was for the championship. The game proved to be a dominating 29-8 performance by Pi Kapp once again.
The two starting quarterbacks, Mike Aliotta (SAE) and Skip John (Pi Kappa Phi), have been good friends for the past few years and really enjoyed the opportunity to play against each other for the championship.
“I have to admit, Mikey and SAE beat us last year and I was determined to do all I can to make sure it didn’t happen this time. But I have to give credit to Nic Antolick for commanding the offense and our team captain Randy Herring for all his great contributions, especially on defense,” said Skip John.
“I had complete confidence in my players,” said SAE quarterback Mike Aliotta, “but early turnovers killed us.”
All in all, Greek sports hit all time highs this year for both sports. The teams hope that they can continue this success into next semester when the new basketball season starts in January.