Student-organized pickleball tournament in Upper St. Clair raises $1,200
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Brady Lisak prepares to serve during the pickleball tournament.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Caroline Sandford and Ben Bacdayan finished first in mixed doubles.
Dev Patel and Leah Lund finished second in mixed doubles.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Joe Phillips and Malorie Glancy participate in mixed doubles. Malorie and teammateCallie Zollars finished second in girls doubles.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Sophia Schlichting and Jason Zhang take a light-hearted approach to their mixed-doubles match.
Sydney Lisak returns a volley.
Caroline Sandford gets ready to serve.
Jason Zhang watches what happens to the ball after he hit it.
For those who like tennis, ping-pong, badminton, racquetball or any combination thereof, the sport that is essentially a mix of all of those activities is bound to be enjoyable.
Pickleball.
And pickleball enthusiasts have plenty of company among Upper St. Clair High School students.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Constantine Tripodes speaks at an Upper St. Clair High School event in February, about three weeks before COVID-19 caused the school’s closure for the remainder of the academic year.
“You don’t get pickleball like this anywhere else, the amount of hours that high schoolers put into pickleball for no reason,” Constantine Tripodes said. “It’s not for college. It’s not for sport in school. It’s just for fun, and everyone loves it.”
As evidence, 90 teams worth of students braved 90-degree temperatures to participate in what amounted to the school’s annual benefit pickleball tournament, even though the official event had been canceled because of COVID-19.
Constantine, a rising senior and one of the presidents of Upper St. Clair Student Council, enlisted the help of classmates to organize an alternative tourney, which took place July 29 at the township’s Baker and Johnston parks.
The effort raised $1,200 for Pittsburgh Foundation’s Emergency Action Fund, which awards operating grants to emergency service providers and nonprofit organizations serving on the front lines of COVID-19 recovery.
For about 15 years, the pickleball tournament has been a fundraising project for the high school’s Kids Helping Kids Club, which originated with helping families in the Dominican Republic and expanded to other types of philanthropies.
Harrison Chui, left, and Jay Vakil finished first in boys’ doubles.
“It’s really cool that we’re still doing this, because the club lost a lot of money, and we normally like to give it to a good cause,” said Gavin Tausch, a Kids Helping Kids member who also is on student council.
He provided assistance in organizing and conducting the tournament, as did Joseph Markovitz, another student council member. He called the day of friendly competition a learning experience.
“When you’re starting an event like this, it’s not just like you tell people and they show up. There are so many steps in between,” he said. “We sort of got cut off from the school with this, and obviously we don’t blame them, but it shows that we can put together something like this without the teachers’ assistance.”
Other students assisting with the effort included Sammie Seewald, Abelardo Sobarzo, Kyle Ralyea, Eme Gross, Ridge McClintock, Valentina Rosales Mejia, Drew Levy and Ridge McClintock. Responsibilities included gathering registrations, sending out reminders, drawing up brackets and securing prizes to award to the top-performing players, who turned out to be:
- Mixed doubles – Caroline Sandford and Ben Bacdayan, first place; Leah Lund and Dev Patel, second;
- Boys doubles – Jay Vakil and Harrison Chui, first place; Max Fultineer and Ben Bacdayan, second;
- Girls doubles – Maddy Huzjak and Alexis Wehrle, first place; Malorie Glancy and Callie Zollars.
As part of the annual tradition a costume contest was held, which included a doubles team dressed in dinosaur costumes. Photos were posted on Instagram for voting, and two female students dressed in Pop-Tarts T-shirts appeared to have received the highest total.
The uscpickle2020 Instagram account helped tremendously in promoting the event, and the posting of brackets on the website challonge.com allowed for participants to easily keep track of when and where they would be playing.
“I don’t think this would have been possible without the Internet,” Constantine said.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Cousins Kevin and Alexis Wehrle participate as a mixed-doubles team. Alexis and teammate Maddy Huzjak finished first in girls doubles.