Indoor soccer winter session heads into home stretch

With over 40 students participating, the Indoor Soccer League is one of the most popular sports within the Intramural program here at MCLA.

Attracting mainly soccer players, the league is a friendly competition that gives players, and anyone else interested, a chance to play the sport for fun outside of the regular season.

“Indoor Soccer has historically been one of the strongest sports for Intramurals. Intramurals has been running indoor soccer since the early 90’s when I was a student at MCLA,” Director of Intramural’s and head coach of Men’s Soccer Adam Hildabrand said.

The Intramural Program (IMS) is a program filled with a variety of activities which gives students, faculty and staff members a chance to take a break from academics and have fun and make new friends.

Intramurals helps students to develop qualities of leadership, cooperation, self-reliance, fitness and a sense of fair play all while having fun. All games are held in Venable Gym. The program is also assisted by student supervisors John Ripepi, Ryan Shewchuck, Olivia McMullen and Gary D’Annunzio.

Senior and soccer player Gary D’Annunzio has been a part of Intramurals as an active participant since his freshman year and a supervisor for the last two years.

“Out of all three [Intramural] sports, soccer has the most interest and the biggest crowd. There are six teams and the games are exciting,” D’Annunzio said. “But we also have various sports that touches all interests of students.”

D’Annunzio is the highest goal scorer for the regular season with 24 goals. Junior Joe Mecca is behind him with 23 goals, with junior Ben Souza in third with 22. Brianna Dandurant is the fouth highest goal scorer with 19 goals.

D’Annunzio’s team also finished the regular season in first place.

Their luck would not hold up in the semi-finals.

On Monday, March 5, the indoor soccer semi-finals started with D’Annunzio’s team “The Moes” squared off against “Captain Morgan and the Rum Runners” in the first round. “Captain Morgan and the Rum Runners” took the win and will go to the finals.

In the second round of the semi-finals “Israel Madrid” played “Heavies.” “Heavies” emerged victorious and will go on to face “Captain Morgan and the Rum Runners” in the finals.

The Intramural program offers a variety of sports, including: basketball, wiffle ball, kickball, floor hockey, ping-pong, dodgeball, indoor soccer, nerf football, ultimate Frisbee, Frisbee golf, flag football, inner tube water polo, volleyball, arena football and softball.

The current session in progress is Session III and it consists of badminton, indoor soccer and ping-pong.
The next session will be offering kan-jam, volleyball and 4-on-4 basketball.

The Intramural Program also hosts events aside from the activities.

“The IM department is hosting an indoor soccer tournament in the Campus Center on March 25 at 11 a.m.,” D’Annunzio said.

They will also be hosting a dodgeball tournament on Apr. 1.

Some of the special events Intramurals hosts are Sunday bowling at Greylock Bowl, Monday’s at the Range – batting cages, mini golf, and driving range and the annual white water rafting trip on the Deerfield River.

The on-going activities students can participate in are swim team workouts at the Campus Center pool, open gym time at Venable Gym and fitness sessions.

All hours for these activities can be found on bulletin boards at the respective areas.

To sign up for Intramurals, there are notices and sign up sheets around campus available for use.

The Intramural department tables from time to time, so students can get their sheets and fill them out that same day. The sign up sheets can be given to any of the student supervisors.

Students can go online to www.imleagues.com/mcla to create an account and register a team. Online, students are able to view the schedule and standings for the leagues.

by Ariana Tourangeau
Staff Writer

Print PDF