The lights were on, the grass was wet, the field was set, and everything else was ready to go as the intramural kickball season began Monday night.

There was only one problem. Almost nobody showed up.

"It’s kind of hard to have a solid, clean event and have good reports come back to us when teams don’t show up. It looks bad on our part because teams don’t show up," said Michael Joyner, an intramural student supervisor in charge of keeping records of the games. "It’s frustrating when we have to forfeit."

Of the five games scheduled to play in last night’s tournament, only two of them actually produced results on the field. The other three games were decided by forfeits. This upset not only Joyner, but the players that came to play as well.

"It was kind of surprising," said Alex Whitesell, who played on the Masticators team. "I wanted to get another game in tonight, but we’ll take it."

Whitesell’s team, the Masticators, was one of only four teams in action due to the amount of forfeits. But none of the teams that played let the forfeits ruin their evening.

The Masticators found themselves in the quarterfinals after their first match was a no-show, and faced off with Quinn Storage.

The Masticators struck early, grabbing a 3-0 lead after two innings of play. This lead was powered by Whitesell, as he knocked a home run to start off the game.

It wasn’t until the third inning that Quinn Storage finally put up a run — but the Masticators scored four runs in the frame to extend the lead to 7-1 after three.

Quinn Storage struck back with three runs of their own in the fourth before Whitesell kicked a three-run home run to put the game out of reach. The Masticators won by a final score of 11-5.

"It was just one of those things that I wanted to do for my team," Whitesell said. "We came out, and we won."

Whitesell had three homers on the night, and knocked in seven runs.

The second — and final — game of the evening showcased another quarterfinal game, pitting Too Legit To Kick against Apes 2.0. Too Legit To Kick found themselves in the quarterfinals as a result of a forfeit, and Apes 2.0 received a first-round bye.

Apes 2.0 struck early and quickly, putting up 11 runs in the first two innings. A grand slam in the first inning by Mark Stocker sparked the scoring effort.

"We all felt the adrenaline and we all got revved up, and it just went from there. It was just a great time — we were out here to have fun," Stocker said.

Stocker proved to be an asset to his team, as he scored two more runs and caught the final out of the game.

Stocker and his team never looked back as they went on to win, 20-3, over Too Legit To Kick. This win puts them in the semifinals against Whitesell’s Masticators on Wednesday evening.

Kickball tournament format

A slew of co-ed teams of no fewer than eight players signed up for the intramural kickball seasonal tournament that began last night at the Hawkeye Recreational Fields.

Fourteen teams signed up this year for the kickball tournament. These teams were placed into the single-elimination tournament by a blind draw. With these draws came dates and times for the selected teams to come and play against each other.

The winners move forward in the three-day event. The losers do not.

One half of the bracket played their games on Monday, up to the semifinals of the tournament. The other half will play tonight at the Rec Fields. On Wednesday, the teams that qualified for the semifinals will play for the right to play in the final kickball game of the season.

Each game is played to the extent of five innings, or until it reaches the 30-minute time limit. Once one of those two criteria is met, the game is called.