ARENA 2020: Football and Frisbee
Written on February 6th, 2020 by {"login"=>"jcbitshyd", "email"=>"journal@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in", "display_name"=>"Journal Club, BPHC", "first_name"=>"", "last_name"=>""}ARENA 2020 - the first time in BPHC history the our boys' football team won during ARENA for two years consecutively and the first time Ultimate Frisbee played during in the sports fest. Read on to find out more about the matches and the teams.
FOOTBALL
BITS A Matches
- Match 1 (23/Jan): BITS A vs ICFAI Business School. (score 4-0)
- Quarter Finals (25/Jan): BITS A vs SNIST (score 1-1. 4-3 penalties)
- Semi-finals (26/Jan): BITS A vs IITM (score 1-1. 5-4 penalties)
- Finals (26/Jan): BITS A vs Bhavans (score 3-1)
Football. A sport that never gets old, always leaving us to clutch our seats in anticipation and anxiety. This ARENA was no different. With Rs. 50k up for grabs and 10+ teams competing, it was sure to be a thrilling fight. This edition of ARENA had its first shock when BITS B unexpectedly lost in the group stage to IIIT Hyderabad. Although it was a match between equals, the home team lost 0-2 against IIIT H.
As defending champions, there were high hopes and expectations on BITS A. And they didn't disappoint. BITS A thundered past their first opponent, ICFAI Business School with a 5-0 victory. The goal scorers include Abhimanyu Gulia, Nipun Tewari, Sahil Nair, Karthik, and Ankit Maini, who became the all-time highest goal scorer of ARENA. The match also witnessed heavy sledging and the game came to a pause as a fight broke out between fans of the two teams. The entire match saw quite a lot of fights and sledging, but none of it mattered in the end.
The quarter-finals and semifinals both ended with scores of 1-1 against SNIST and IIT Madras respectively. The captain, Abhimanyu Gulia stepped up to the occasion on both times, saving 2 goals against SNIST and 1 against IIT M in the penalties, to take his team through to the finals.
The initial match-ups for the semifinals were BITS A vs IIIT H and IITM vs Bhavans. Due to time constraints (read: delays) and IIIT H having exams the following week, they were unable to play the semifinals. The semifinals between IITM and BITS A was finally selected based on picking up chits, to keep it fair and Bhavans proceeded directly to the finals.
The finals. Expectations high. Hopes high. Heads held high. The teams walked out to receive a loud cheer, the question at the back of everyone’s mind, will BPHC lift the cup again? Both teams were equally good, neither giving up. A grievous error from the Bhavans’ goalkeeper led to BPHC taking the lead early on, a wonderful strike by Gulia from the half-line. Not much later, Nipun doubled the lead with his wonderful dribbling and a smooth shot into the goal. The 3rd goal came from Ankit Maini, calmly done, though his celebrations weren’t as calm. He received his second yellow card for his jubilant celebrations and was out of the match. The 10 member BPHC team defended with everything they had, but Bhavans regained some of their lost pride by scoring a goal. As the whistle blew, BPHC had won the match with a score of 3-1 against Bhavans. For the first time in the history of ARENA, BPHC had won 2 successive editions of ARENA.
Interview with a Member of the Bhavans’ Team
Q: What do you think of the sports facilities in BITS compared to your college?
The facilities here are much better than the ones in our college. It is much better here in BITS, the ground, the campus. The campus is much bigger and all the facilities better, as far as I have seen.
Q: What is your opinion on ARENA over the years - what has changed, what hasn't?
ARENA is really good. The competition has increased a lot, so it is much harder to win, which is good. But, along with the competition, the sledging has also increased. There are more fights now. Otherwise, it is really good.
Q: Does your college provide you with reimbursements or travel and registration fee?
Not really. The registration fee of Rs. 7000 is paid by the students. If the institute pays the registration fees, then the money we get from winning the tournament has to be handed over to them as well. The college provides us with Rs. 200-300 for our needs (per person), but apart from that, we don't get any other support financially.
ULTIMATE FRISBEE
Frisbee formally became a part of ARENA for the first time this year, with teams vying for the first place and cash prizes of around Rs. 10k.
Frisbee matches are played in a 7 v 7 with a ratio of 5:2 gender ration between boys and girls on the team. With all the Frisbee matches being played on the football field, careful scheduling was required to avoid clashing with the football matches. Despite the planning, delays in football matches caused some frisbee matches to get delayed, but even the most delayed matches ended around midnight.
Teams participating in the tournament were BITS UFC (BITS Goa), Slipdiisc (IISc Bangalore), Skywalkers (Christ University), Doesn’t Matter (Jain University) and BPHC Ultimate, the home team. BPHC Ultimate played with 2 teams - BITS A and BITS B under the leadership of Ankush GK and Om Girish Gandhi respectively.
Notable moments throughout the journey include the cheer at half-time in the BITS Goa vs BPHC A match, which was tied until half time. The match between Doesn’t Matter and BITS Goa was also similarly very intense. Other moments include the chase Shubham Agarwal gave to the disc at the very end of the end zone against Doesn’t Matter [end zone is the area in where a point is scored by the team if the frisbee is caught]. The match point of the same game was very intense and went on for ten minutes with a dozen turnovers (disc switching possession) making it the longest point in the league.
While most of the other teams were satisfied by the accommodation provided in hostels and were impressed with the facilities in our SAC, a couple of teams pointed out that the football ground was a very dangerous place to play in, as many players faced injuries. Unlike other sports, for which college administrations partially fund trips to sporting tournaments, most of the external teams said that their college doesn't reimburse them for attending frisbee tournaments.
Frisbee matches during Arena also helped people understand the sport better. "From an audience’s perspective, we saw people being very curious about the sport, many of whom were astounded at the fact that the matches don’t feature a referee. These matches also got rid of the misconception that the sport involves just standing stationary and throwing discs to one another. They saw that it was a very fast, dynamic and agile game. There were many people so captivated by the sport that they wanted to play it themselves"
BITS Goa emerged at the top of the league table winning first place and Skywalkers (Christ University) winning the Spirit Prize. Overall all teams were thrilled to play in Arena and hope to return again.