var uslide_show_id = “0f9514c1-30af-4ee1-8b28-0ba6605e3af2”;var slideshowwidth = “230”;var linktext = “”;In a small apartment packed wall-to-wall with college students, a table stands by the door that looks strikingly similar to the basketball floor of the RBC center.
Store-bought picnic cups filled with beer cover the tables as four students throw ping pong balls into the makeshift basket from opposite sides.
This was not a party, and this was no ordinary game of beer pong, a popular drinking game, this was the first tournament of the Carolina Beer Pong Association.
The association was started by Reilly Bliton, a senior in mechanical engineering, and Matt Madaris, a senior in business management, and includes eight teams of two. For four weeks before the tournament, the teams met in a small apartment at University House to play their regular season games every Tuesday night.
Each team pays $20 to play in the tournament, which helps cover the cost of the trophy beer and any other supplies. The winning team takes home $50 and the trophy.
The game is easy to play and learn.
“If you make it in a cup, that cup is removed from the pyramid,” Madaris said, “The winner is determined as the last person to get all the cups out.”
It wasn’t until this year that Bliton and Madaris thought to organize it. The idea came while the two were working.
“We got bored at work,” Bliton said, “We had been talking about it for a while.”
All the guys in the league had been playing beer pong for a while.
“We’ve been playing beer pong since freshman year,” Madaris said.
Only four teams advanced to the second night of the tournament.
Brian Kerns, a student in bussiness management, and Andrew Moore, a junior in mechanical engineering, made up the team “That ain’t my bag baby” which was eliminated.
“We went out in the first round,” Moore said.
“We were playing the highest ranked seed and we were ahead the whole game,” he said, “I should have been drunker.”
David Nichols, a junior in biological sciences, and Micheal Downer, a junior in industrial engineering, made up “Team Canada” and advanced to the next night of play. The two formed a strategy that seemed to pay off.
“We try to throw off their depth perception by not standing behind the cups so there are other things behind the cups for them to look at,” Nichols said.
The rules are simple, but any discrepancy is handled by Bliton and Madaris.
“If there is any kind of discrepancy that’s not covered in our rules on the Web site, then me and him will come meet right there on the spot and decide what the ruling is,” Madaris said.