In a basketball bonanza battle of wills, the Orange dominated The Spectrum Swoosh in a furious routing in the Alumni Arena Triple Gym during UB intramural basketball.
The 66-31 massacre in front of seven fans saw Jennifer "The Beast" Gillan lead a team of predominantly sports editors with 10 points on the evening. The Beast also pitched in four rebounds, an assist and a block in the losing effort.
"I just went in there and did what I had to do," Gillan said. "It's been a tough season trying to work together with the arts desk and life desk editors. They were always too busy thinking about looking good, and not about playing well."
Katie "Pink Lady" Beczak was the lone scorer from Life Desk with two points and claims that she may have been thinking more about vanity, but it was only for the good of the team.
"Yeah, I took pride in my appearance at games," Beczak said. "I like my pink sneakers. I figured that if my feet looked good, then it might distract the other team."
Tony "Sarge" Sylor led the team in the rest of the categories with nine rebounds, eight assists, three steals, two blocks, two fouls and eight turnovers. Sylor also finished the night 1-14, going 0-6 from three-point land.
"I would feel better if we won the game," Sylor said. "If you want to get to Arizona, you'll probably have to drive through Missouri."
Justin "The Big Deal" Haag felt that the team played as well as it could, considering there were two subs.
"We were busting our butts out there," Haag said. "I must have run up and down that court a hundred times before I got a break...oh wait that wasn't me, it was someone else. I was just really tired I guess."
The Big Deal went 4-10, including the team's only three-pointer, and grabbed six rebounds, dealt five assists, took two steals but also gave away six turnovers.
Rounding out the rest of the team, Ken "Kennibal" Ilgunas went 2-12 with eight rebounds, four turnovers, three assists and a steal. Alex "Nas" Nasarewsky also chipped in two.
Many pointed fingers at Alex "A-Mac" Rubin after the game for such a god-awful shooting performance. A-Mac went 0-4, all threes, in limited minutes and also made three turnovers.
"I'm the Calvin Cage of intramurals," Rubin said. "I do what it takes to win."
Jennifer "Coach" Brooks, the team's chief motivator, said that while it wasn't exactly a close game, it was a huge improvement from previous performances.
"Normally, we don't make it into double digits," Brooks said. "But we have been working hard. I have had these guys up at 6 a.m. every day for practice for the last week-and-a-half.
With the season now over, the team has more time to get back to their jobs at the newspaper.
"I guess we kind of forgot we had a paper to run," Sylor said. "Jeremy (Burton) showed up to the game and yelled at us for forgetting to write stories. It just didn't occur to us that Jeremy was doing every desk's job. Whatever. He's always there anyways."
Burton, as Editor in Chief of The Spectrum, was glad to have his editors back, saying that he had begun to feel abandoned.
"I missed my friends," Burton said. "I would be sitting here and an idea for a story would pop into my head, and I would start talking about it to the person next to me for like 15 minutes. Only there wasn't anyone next to me. I had been talking to myself the entire time."
The Swoosh now look to take a page from the men's soccer, wrestling, and men's basketball teams, by scheduling games against stiff competition for next year. Games are tentatively slated against Sweet Home Nursing Home, the Buffalo School for the Blind, and Dodge Elementary School.
