The Pioneers Win the 2019 Arrowhead Intramural Basketball Championship
On Thursday, February 28th, 2019 the intramural “Carroll College Pioneers” team defeated the “TCU Horned Frogs” to obtain the title of 2019 champions. The game was played at the Arrowhead South Campus Upper Gym at 4:00 pm. The Pioneers won by a score of 29 to 25, leaving the Horned Frogs with the second place finish.
According to the “UMBC Retrievers” and Arrowhead intramural basketball player Ethan Hill, the Pioneers were the front runners for the title from the beginning.
“Yeah, there is no way anyone is going to be able to beat those guys. I am not even too sure why some of them aren’t on the varsity team. They are just bigger, stronger, faster and smarter than any other team and I am not surprised that they won,” said Hill.
The Pioneers have been together since the 2017 season when they played together as sophomores. The majority of the team consists of players who played for Arrowhead their freshman year but decided not to try out for their JV season.
Their roster consists of Captain Jacob Schleicher, Avan Prange, Jonathan Witter, Willem Paulson, Josh Kilmer, Nic Wohlfiel, who have all played for the freshmen team and Nick Rocco, who extended his career on the JV team. Lastly, the team is anchored with the athletes of Seth Fohey and Harry Smith. All of the Pioneer players are seniors.
“I feel pretty good, Jacob was just hitting everything he shot so we as a team just tried to get him the ball and ended up coming up on top,” said Kilmer.
Although the Pioneers obtained victory, the Horned Frogs finished second overall in the tournament. Their team roster contains captain Steve Theo, Luke Schraufnagel, Jackson Strombeck, Christian Shepard, Joey Bartolone, Joey Biwer, Dan Van Neck, and Evan Marsh. All of the Horned Frogs team members are seniors as well.
“I am upset, even though I know at the end of the day I am happy that some of my friends on the other team won and I know that they outplayed us,” said Schraufnagel.
Shepard led all scores Thursday night with 13, Schleicher had 12, Prange and Theo both dropped 8, Paulson and Witter with 3, and Schraufnagel and Van Neck both added a pair of points. Each individual member of the Pioneers received a 10 dollar gift card to a Marcus Movie Theater.
Along with the championship game being played Thursday, the game for third was held beforehand. That game was a battle between the “South Carolina Gamecocks” and the “WCTC Owls.”
The Owls took the win with a 43-40 victory. Juniors Tommy Darrow and Roby Symdon had themselves a solid night with 13 points each to led the Owls. Junior Danny Durand led all scores of the game with 14 making 6 points from behind the arc.
The final standings of the season concluded with the Pioneers at number one, followed by the Horned Frogs at number two, the WCTC Owls retaining at number three, and finally, the fourth best team after the long season is the Gamecocks. The sign up for next year will need to be submitted by the end of October 2019.
