Wando’s Ping Pong Club made history on March 2. On that morning, students met competitors from Academic Magnet High School in the CAS, where they engaged in the first ever Ping Pong Tournament.

The club’s President, Andrew Nguyen, helped to orchestrate the event after his friends at Magnet started a club of their own, and a tradition was born.

“We were just playing one day, and they were like, ‘We’re just going to start a club,’ and I was like ‘Okay, cool, we should meet up some time, play, see who’s a little better and have a little competition,’” Nguyen said.

The tournament consisted of five singles matches, meaning one-on-one games, and two doubles matches. Wando prevailed in all five of the singles matches against Magnet, and one of the doubles matches, making their record 6-1.

“It wasn’t really a matter of who won, it was just trying to get out there and learn the sport,” Nguyen said. “It’s funny how ironic people take it, so we like to hype it up… when most people wouldn’t.”

The Wando Ping Pong Club is finishing up its second year under sponsor Jason Sox, who helps organize meetings and allows students to practice in his classroom during lunch. Sox has enjoyed watching the team grow in number and branch out to host these tournaments.

“The guys are really great to get along with…they’re always ready to play and be very complimentary,” Sox said. “I like that about the magnet guys, too, I feel like there was an air of competitiveness to it but there was a lot of respect for each other.”

As this year comes to a close, the Ping Pong Club looks forward to hosting more tournaments and seeing more involvement.

“Whoever takes over next year, for both schools…I think they’ll be able to continue next year and hopefully make it an annual thing,” Nguyen said. “We want to have other schools, if they end up developing clubs like ours, to be able to compete.”

Both Sox and Nguyen are hoping to spread the word about Ping Pong Club, and encourage people to join in on Thursday mornings or just come out to support.