Imperial Wolverines dodge victory

The Imperial Wolverines had a fantastic start to their season with both teams taking home medals after a suspense-riddled day in Hatfield.

The morning started off in standard fashion, with the Wolverines discovering the endless delays away from Hyde Park due to the Royal Parks half marathon, culminating in an hour-long detour taking them on a stressful tour of Central London. However, the ever-reliable driver Alan Soltani maxed out the minibus’s solid top speed of 62mph in his desire to get to the venue on time, driven on by a strengthening urge to go to the toilet (despite repeated refusals to just stop at a petrol station) and to prove he could drive for longer than 5 minutes without stalling (which he definitely couldn’t).

Thus the Wolverines turned up fashionably late, arriving in Hatfield in shirts and ties with just 20 minutes till the first matches kicked off. The team was looking pretty fly, apart from Justin ‘The Defendant’ Ioanna, thinking that matching a shirt and tie with jogging bottoms and trainers was a good look. Blunder.

Both teams struggled to warm up in time, with the 2nd team unfortunately losing all three of their group matches placing them into the playoff stages, while the 1st team won the first and the final matches and just lost the second group match against eventual winners The Meteors.

The 1sts then played a relatively easy Quarter Final game before coming up against their rivals Reepham Raiders in the Semis in a best-of-7 match. This was always going to be close, but the Wolverines came out on top, thanks to some hard hits from Jan ‘Janimal’ Kosco. Meanwhile, the 2nd team were cruising through the ‘best of the rest’ matches, and despite several calls of questionable reffing from the opposition, made it to the playoff final.

After witnessing a beautiful double catch from Zain Abbas and Justin Ioanna during the 2nd team’s demolition of Bedfordshire Mixed Bulls II to win the playoff medal, it was the turn of the 1sts to face The Meteors once again in an attempt to do the double for the Wolverines, and win only their second-ever tournament in club history. The only time the 1sts have ever played The Meteors twice in one day was at East Anglia, where the Wolverines won their first ever gold medal. Were The Meteors about to win their first ever gold in the same fashion and beat us for the second time?

Unfortunately it was not to be for the Wolverines. Despite solid performances across the team, the expertise of the Imperial Alumnus Adam Cutmore as well as the fastest-recorded thrower in the UK proved too much for the 1sts, losing 4-2 to take home silver.

Man of the tournament for the 2nds was Will Robinson for his superb catching and countering, whereas for the 1sts it was a tie between Alan Soltani for his club record-breaking 4 catches in one game and Steve Ndumbe for some strong throwing. Congratulations must also be given to Jan Kosco and Nuno ‘Too Easy’ Cunha for their excellent debuts for the 1sts and 2nds respectively, and to Tom Peake for his incredible leadership as 1st VI Captain for the first time (even Alan ‘The Dictator’ Soltani listened to him (most of the time…)). Overall, it was a solid start to the season for the Wolverines, who are hoping to build on this performance with the help of some amazing fresher talent. Here’s to a successful year! Dodgeball run free sessions in Ethos, Weds 8-10pm.