Intramural gears up for a new season as students form teams to compete

As the fall season starts later this month Intramural sports matches are going to start with a variety of activities. Intramural is a big part of the Minnesota State University, Mankato activities as they  provide different Intramural sports to students.

This coming week Intramural sports will be starting having two categories which are solo and team. This week’s first activity is NCAA Weekly Football Pick’em which is going to be through ESPN. It’s a special group for MSU students which requires username and password. This activity is going to be played in MSU domain each week. The champion will receive an intramural champion shirt.

Other sports like NFL football, flag football, team bowling, volleyball, outdoor soccer, four-person sand volleyball and bean bag tournament for which the registration is coming up. Students can access the full information about next few weeks activities on the Intramural sports calendar which is on the campus recreations website.

Intramural benefits students in a lot of different ways allowing them to be active outside the classroom and it also promotes mental, physical and comradery among students. Also meeting new students at MSU and being a captain of a team can help one to learn some leadership and communications skills. It’s a fun activity to participate in on campus to get involved and stay active.

Most team activities start on Sept. 19 like flag football and slow pitch softball and volleyball with outdoor soccer starting the week of Sept. 26. These activities will take place from Monday to Thursday nights and there are some weekend tournaments coming up. There are over 40 sports throughout fall and spring semesters; a lot of them are team sports, but some are individual, which are golf singles, tennis singles, dodgeball tournament and table tennis.

New Students can sign up for these activities through the MSU website and generally participants play around 2 to 3 times a week lasting for about 45 minutes. Generally Intramural sports play around MSU however, the National Intramural Recreational Sports Association hosts a flag football regional tournament championship game annually. A team from MSU came in second place last season hosted at the University of Nebraska.

Ryan Stevens, Program Coordinator for Intramural Sports, shared how easy is to form a team “Each resident hall has their own event coordinator, talk to those event coordinators and if they have a volleyball team, see who else is interested and in maybe playing volleyball and that’s a way those students can get connected and play as a team,” Stevens said.

Megan Marquardt, a senior at MSU, plays volleyball in intramural sports. Marquardt started playing during her freshman year and got to know about volleyball activities through billboards and flyers and contacted the event coordinator to sign up.

“I met a lot of different people through intramurals, not just your team, but also the other teams you are playing against. It’s something to look forward to after a long school day. I play hockey and lacrosse here but not division one hockey, so I still want some sports. I am really competitive, so I joined intramural, which is fun, competitive and active,” Marquardt said.

Header Photo: Intramural sports is one way to stay active throughout the school year and socialize with new or old friends. (Photo courtesy of Baylee Sorensen)

Write to Ayan Muhammad at Ayan.Muhammad@mnsu.edu