Three teams will be crowned the best in Iowa intramural sports when the 34th and final athletics season of 2011-12, co-rec soccer, comes to a close today.

Quinn Storage finished first in the men’s division of the Buffalo Wild Wings Intramural Championship, and Sons of Thunder won both the co-rec and women’s divisions. Thunder nearly swept all three leagues but finished second in the men’s, according to the latest standings on Iowa’s intramural website.

The winning teams receive $100 gift cards to Buffalo Wild Wings, and — for the first time ever — a trophies. Members of Quinn said they will proudly display the hardware in the office of member Riley Quinn’s father; the elder Quinn runs the team’s faux sponsor, Quinn Storage in Marion.

"We had a goal, and we did it," Quinn member Zach Bodensteiner said. "We decided we wanted to do it May of last year. All year we talked about it, but we never thought it would actually happen."

Quinn members estimated they had from 20 to 35 different people play during the year. Their main strategy was to have someone represent them in as many sports as possible, and they achieved their goal; Quinn placed members in all but five sports.

Andy Christopher, a graduate assistant in intramural sports, said teams receive points for every event in which they compete. Sports are categorized into one of five tiers, based on the size of the sport. Flag football and basketball are Tier-I sports, which receive the most points, while sports such as table tennis and darts are Tier-V, which receive the least.

Christopher said teams have to use the same name in each sport in order to accumulate points; as long as a team competes in an event, it gets a minimum number of points, he said.

The Thunder teams focused on competing in the bigger events offered by Recreational Services. Member Jeff Simak said winning the championship was humbling, but it was never the group’s ultimate goal.

"Most of us are involved in the college ministry group 24:7," he wrote in an email. "And our No. 1 goal has been to bring God’s glory through playing the different sports. It’s nice to win, but there’s a lot more to playing intramural sports than winning."

Thunder softball captain Kelli Collins wrote in an email that winning was a little more personal to her. Her older sister’s group won the women’s title while she was in college, so Collins has been trying to compete with her.

"We faced a lot of good women’s teams, and they all made us better competitors," she said. "We just have a great cohesiveness of women."

Members of all three teams said they will attempt to defend their titles next year. Quinn will lose a few members to graduation — including the Quinn connection, in Riley Quinn — but the members said they have plenty of other students willing to step up.

"We’ll have teams next year," team member Jeff Moon said. "It’ll be tough, because we won’t have as many people, but we’re definitely going to try to win for Quinn again."