Creighton University’s quadball teams took home the glory for the first time in theBlue Jay Classic VIII, held on Saturday, Feb. 8 in the Rasmussen Center. Creighton’s varsity quadball team finished in first place as it remained undefeated; wins throughout the tournament came against University of Missouri’s club quadball team with a 215-30 win, University of Virgina’s quidditch club with a 185-90 win, Creighton’s junior varsity team with a score of 235-70 in the round robin and a victory of 245-80 in the championships.  

“I thought it [the performance] was pretty dominant,” Creighton chaser and senior Tanner Sato said. “At least from [Creighton’s] standpoint, I thought all of the games were very decisive wins… I do think that performance-wise, [we were] pretty dominant.” 

Despite being defeated in the championships, theBlue Jays finished the Classic as the runner-up. During the round robin, despite trailing by seven points against the University of Virginia, the Blue Jays quickly worked to close the gap and came out on top with a score of 215-190, along with another win against Mizzou with a score of 170-155.  

“[For] some of [the players],this is their first tournament ever,” Sato said. “They had two practices beforehand, and then they [went] out and beat extremely good competition. They beat Virginia, they beat Mizzou—both really gritty teams. … I think they are more gritty and dog-esque than I think we[experienced players]were when we were younger on that team. They were down seven [points] against Virginia at one point, and not one time did I see an ounce of just giving up. They just kept their head down and kept grinding back to a win. They beat the number two team in the country after being down seven [points]. That’s pretty unbelievable. So,I’m just really proud of everyone,” he added.  

The Classic had two components to its structure.The first was a round robin, where each team would have the opportunity to compete against each other with the goal to accumulate the most wins. The final number of wins determined where they stood in the pool play portion of the competition. This second style of the competition was broken into two games, where the teams ranked third and fourth place—Mizzou with 0-3 and UVA with 1-2, in this case—competed to earn third place in the overall competition. The top teams with the highest number of wins—Creighton with 3-0 and Blue Jays 2-1—competed in the championship round to declare the official winner of the Blue Jay Classic.  

The game itself, Quadball, was originally inspired by Quidditch, a sport in the wizarding world of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. In this mixed-gender sport, players are mounted on a pole or PVC pipe, known as their “broom,” and compete against each other in scoring points against the opposing team by shooting a ball, known as the quaffle, into one of the three mounted hoops, differentiating in height, on the opposite side of the field.  

“Obviously, there’s [a whole other aspect of] beating, which is unheard of, really, in other sports. But, it’s a mix of co-ed handball and dodgeball,” Head Coach and Creighton chaser senior Riley Usami said. “[When you are hit by a dodgeball],you have to tag [the goal post to get] back in. And handball is like the movement aspect; you freely move. It’s not like [playing] Frisbee, where you’re…stuck after a certain [number] of steps.” 

There are also three available positions for each team member to hold during their time on the field.  

“There are Chasers, Keepers, Beaters and Seekers. Chasers and Keepers pretty much will do your scoring for you. They’re the ones who put the ball through the hoop. Beaters…can be used for both offense and defense, but I like to think of them mostly as defense. They’re the ones who throw the dodgeballs at the opposing team, trying to hit them. … And the Seekers, [the] last position: it’s kind of like another way to score. You’re not putting the ball through the hoop. You’re essentially going one-on-one or maybe one-on-one-on-one against another Seeker,” Usami said.  

Scores are calculated through the number of goals made; ten points are awarded each time the quaffle passes through one of the opponent’s hoops. Additional points are given to the team whose seeker acquires the Flag Runner’s tennis ball that is hanging from the back of their waist. This position is compared to the snitch in Quidditch and awards the team 35 points when obtained by itsSeeker.  

Both Creighton quadball teams underwent many challenges in preparation for the Classic, including a short training period due to school’s dismissal for winter break, schedule conflicts between players and practice and the annual break-in of new players to the sport. However, despite such obstacles, Creighton and the Blue Jays would train both on and off the field, through physical exercise and deduction of footage from previous games, to ensure their readiness for the competition. 

“We have one practice on Wednesday and…one on Sunday… Then we do our everyday skill drills. We then go into…half-court offense and defensive work. And after that, we either go into like an install period where we are trying to install something new [and] work on something that we haven’t done before, such as a new defensive [or offensive] play to run. … We always end the practice with some sort of scrimmaging,” Sato said. 

Due to numerous challenges present during the training period, Usami and Sato were both left with pre-game jitters.   

“As one of the two people pretty much running the practices, there’sdefinitely a little bit of nerves. Like, ‘did you prepare them [the players] enough…to actually win our own home tournament for once?’” Usami said.  

Yet, as soon as the game was underway, their worries quickly fell away, as Creighton and Blue Jays climbed to the top of the leadership board.  

 “[After our first game], I was riding a pretty high level of confidence,” Sato said. 

 According to the U.S. Quadball 2024-2025 Standings & Game Database, Creighton is currently ranked the number one team in the nation, while Blue Jays are ranked number twelve. Yet, despite their current victory and standings, Usami and Sato are determined to not let stats or rankings dilute the teams’ drive and efforts for preparing for their next milestone, the U.S. National Qualifiers in Champagne, Illinois. 

“At the end of the day, this tournament isn’t what we’re striving to win.We’re striving to win a national championship,” Usami said.  

 “Creighton hasn’t gotten past a quarter-final game in the last two years,” Sato added.“In the last two years, we’ve been the number one seed going into the tournament, and we get bounced in the quarter final. So this win is awesome; it’s great, but we’re trying to win a Natty.”