By Daniel Kerwin

Sure it’s blue, but how blue?The athletic department recently came to a consensus decision on the department’s official color scheme. It may seem common knowledge that Macalester’s athletic colors are orange and blue, but the department decided to clarify the exact shade of blue this should be, in the end deciding upon royal blue.

The vote was carried out by the department with input from the Student Athletic Advisory Committee. The result reaffirms that the athletic department will stay rooted in its traditional color scheme.

“Royal has always been the school color, so there’s been no change, but the lack of change needed a vote to substantiate the decision,” Athletic Director Kim Chandler said. “It was more of a housekeeping piece to say what the future steps are in terms of our color scheme.”

The issue was brought up because other shades of blue have been used in various places throughout the department, such as navy blue as a uniform color for the volleyball and softball teams and marine blue in various places within the Leonard Center, including the performance gym. The vote was the final stage of an ongoing decision regarding this disparity.

The decision means that the volleyball and softball teams will have to transition away from their navy uniforms, but it will not be an immediate shift, instead taking place over the next two or three years when new uniforms need to be ordered. Other teams have used navy blue or other colors for team clothing, but only the volleyball and softball teams had it as a part of their official uniform.

One of the perceived advantages in regulating the shade of blue will be to set apart Macalester athletes at sporting events. Other MIAC schools such as Bethel, Carleton and St. Mary’s use navy as a part of their color schemes, so by ensuring Macalester athletes are wearing royal blue there will hopefully be less room for confusion, especially in events such as swim and track meets.

Although orange and blue are often associated as the school colors, they are in fact solely designated as the school’s athletic colors. The institution as a whole has various other color schemes, such as grey and red for the college logo and gridmark.

Intramural Soccer

The unusual scheduling of this past semester has thrown things a bit out of whack, and the intramural soccer season has felt the full brunt of this. Classes will already have ended before the intramural soccer season reaches its conclusion, with the final to be played tomorrow afternoon in the Leonard Center.

The final features a matchup between the Mambas and Coup d’Etat, the two most prolific goal-scoring teams during the regular season. The Mambas beat the Ladybugs 2-0 in their semi-final match, and Coup d’Etat overcame team 300 in their semi-final by a score of 3-0.

The Mambas and Coup d’Etat already met in the regular season, with that particular game ending in the Mambas favor.

“Although we lacked some of our key players, we did lose against the Mambas in the group stage, our only loss this season,” Coup d’Etat team captain Hiroyuki Miyake ’09 said. “Revenge would be sweet, but no matter how the results turn out, I think it’ll be a good game.”

“I guess it is going to be competitive, but we intend to do our best and hopefully win the game,” Mamba team captain Emery Mizero ’09 said.

The last few weeks of the season have been played indoors due to cold weather. Playing indoors is a luxury that wasn’t available last year, but it has also meant that teams have had to adapt to a whole different style of play. For instance, the goals for indoor soccer are much smaller and there are no sidelines.

“I think the move indoors frustrated a lot of teams, and we were no exception,” Miyake said. “We were lucky though; especially in the semi-finals, I feel we played no better than our opponents but results turned out well for us.”

“I think they’d much rather play outside, but I think we’ll have to play inside,” Intramural Director Stephanie Schleuder said.

Although ideally the season would have been reaching its end before the cold weather set in, various factors combined to drive the season to this late finish. With the athletic department having to finish moving in to the new athletic building into September, the season didn’t start until Sep. 14, and there was also a week that had to be cancelled due to bad weather, something that Schleuder said doesn’t usually happen.

However, the circumstances didn’t prevent the season from being highly competitive, and most importantly it didn’t take the fun out of the game.

“The level of competition was high especially during the playoffs,” Mizero said. “I enjoyed playing with all the teams that we encountered and I hope everyone had a similar experience.”

IM Basketball 3 on 3 Tournament

The past few weeks witnessed another intense intramural competition, the 3 on 3 Intramural Basketball Tournament. The 12 teams that competed were split into two brackets, with eight teams participating in the competitive bracket and the remaining four participating in the recreational bracket.

The playoffs took place on Nov 23, with the championship matches in each bracket being played the same night.

The semi-finals for the competitive bracket were both tightly contested. The first semi-final saw the Finger Rolls overcome Ballers for Change on a last second shot.

“We played a great game, we weren’t able to make it to the championship, which was obviously our goal, but we played well and the other team ended up winning, we can’t really complain,” Ballers for Change team captain Matt Arck ’09 said.

The other semi-final witnessed Glovebox Heat take down the Zanzibarbarians in another close result. Glovebox Heat went on the beat the Finger Rolls in the final.

“Our semi final game was really close right up until the end, but the final was not close at all,” Glovebox Heat player Jason Friedman ’10 said. “They were the bigger team, but our jumpers just kept falling and a bunch of early 3’s put the game away.”

Top-ranked Team Voldemort emerged as the winners in the recreational bracket final, beating Ballers by Nature, who reached the final after winning an overtime game against Funky Kong and the Funky Bunch in the semi-finals.

“The [recreational bracket] was very competitive, we just proved we were up to the task as a team,” Team Voldemort player Nick Santrach ’11 said.

The tournament was a good test run of the Leonard Center’s new basketball facilities, with games being played on the hoops in the Alumni Gymnasium as well as being played upstairs in the field house. It was a great improvement after last year’s tournament, which was played in the IHM gym.

“Last year the environment was clustered, and it was not a real basketball court,” Ballers for Change player Chris Olsen ’09 said. “This year there were more people watching and it just felt more official with this great court here.