Team Lysanity was victorious for this year’s March Madness tournament. March Madness is a basketball tournament that is held on the tennis courts, and the championship takes place in the MPR. This event is hosted by the SHS leadership athletics committee, which took place during lunch every March before Spring Break. This event typically lasts for a week, but was postponed and resumed in April due to several conflicts.
Leadership student, Mariah Flores, helped set up this year’s tournament.
“We have lots of students who enjoy playing a fun game of basketball against their friends,” stated Mariah.
This year, sign-ups for March Madness were online. Each team of three would fill out one form with each participant’s name, student ID, and their team name. This year’s set of teams included: Sagon, Los Primos, TMODE, JMJ, Chudz, Beans, M.O.B., PSB, BBB, Triple A, and Lysanity.
March Madness is run using a bracket system; each team’s opponent is selected at random for the first match, and whoever wins moves on to the next round. This continues until there is a singular victorious team.
The first round held five games: Triple A against BBB, M.O.B. against PSB, Chudz against Beans, TMODE against JMJ, and Sagon against Los Primos. The teams that moved on to the next round were Lysanity, Triple A, M.O.B., Chudz, TMODE, and Sagon. This round left only 3 teams remaining: Sagon, Lysanity, and M.O.B. There was one semi-final game, Lysanity against M.O.B. Lysanity won this game and moved on to the championship against M.O.B. Lysanity overpowered Sagon, winning the game 16-8.
Junior, Andrew Bustinza, participated in March Madness this year and was on team Triple A. His decision to sign up stemmed from his previous experiences playing in March Madness.
“It was very fun, so I wanted to have the same experience,” Andrew commented.
Last year, Andrew, alongside teammates, made it to the semi-finals before ultimately coming up short. This year, they made it to the second round, then lost against Lysanity. Despite this, Andrew remained spirited,
“Although we didn’t get that far this year, they were both equally fun,” he explained.
Reflecting on his experience, he enjoyed his competition, even explaining his challenges with humor.
“Our guidance counselor, Mr. Ly, turned into Steph Curry and started hitting everything,” Andrew described.
