For the past month, students involved in the physical education classes have enjoyed playing a sport that most people outside of the class have not heard of–pickle ball.  Pickle ball is a sport where students hit a wiffle- ball across a net back and forth, much like a small scale version of tennis.

After spending a few weeks learning the basics of the sport, students from all four  classes began to play competitively in preparation for the tournament to show who was the top pickle ball player in the school.  Finally, the tournament arrived, and the students went head to head with other members of their class.

The class tournaments produced four winners, who moved on to face each other in a single- elimination tournament of champions.

“[We’ve been] doing some rigorous training exercises, and putting our bodies through just about all they can handle in order to prepare for the tournament.  Now that the tournament is here, it is all starting to show up,” said senior Corey Webb, one of the four students who advanced to the final tournament.

Webb moved on in the semi-finals of the tournament, as did freshman AJ Mazon on the other side of the bracket.  With these victories, the finals were officially set with a showdown between a senior and a freshman.

In the finals, both players started out volleying well, and the score stayed close at the beginning.  As the game wore on, Corey Webb began to run away with it, winning by a final score of 15-9.

With the victory, Webb was crowned the official Pickle Ball King of Searcy High School.  Now that pickle ball has come and gone, the nets, paddles, and wiffle-balls will be put away until a later time.  Next year, with a new batch of students coming in, Searcy High will crown a new King to reign over the pickle ball courts– and the cycle begins again.