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Luke Warren

Last Friday, Norristown Area High School’s Raices Encontradas hosted a dodgeball tournament, its first ever event, that will be remembered as a bittersweet send off for the group’s founding seniors. 

Raices Encontradas was formed around three years ago, during the 2021-2022 school year, when the now senior members were only freshmen. The group started with the intention of helping latino students who had the goal of going to college, a majority of whom would be first generation.

“It started with those students, they were very high-achieving academically, and from there the group grew every year,” Raices Encontradas teacher sponsor Misty Cincotti said.

Raices first got the idea of a dodgeball tournament from the new freshman members wanting to conduct a sporting event before holiday break but needed to stay respectful to other clubs’ sporting events, such as Unidad’s soccer tournament. 

“And after a few meetings, they just ended up agreeing on dodgeball and we thought it would be really fun,” Cincotti said. 

However, the setup was not without its faults. Raices had only around a month to plan and set up everything. Sixteen teams were set to play, eight players per team, however only nine full teams were committed and paid for by the set deadline. 

“We were just impressed that anyone wanted to get involved,” Cincotti said. 

And with that, the tournament was underway: nine teams competing in an entertaining and dynamic dodgeball tournament. Nine games. 72 Players. And only one winner.

The tournament ended with the “Grapes” taking home the 1st place trophy, winning all their games. The “Sigma Sigma Bois” followed in 2nd place and the “Full-Time Funkers” placed 3rd, both teams receiving silver and bronze medals for their efforts. 

Overall, the event was set to be a fun, school-wide gathering of people and that’s exactly what it turned out to be. 

“I think for the small window of time we had, it was a great success,” senior Raices member Alex Rosas De La Luz said. “A lot of people were entertained, I think it was an exciting night and I appreciate everybody who showed up, who came out to support.”

All participants and spectators were required to pay $5 and $3, respectively and all proceeds went directly towards Raices Encontradas, for their end-of-year family dinner, in which members of the club, as well as their family members, have a full expense-paid dinner in celebration of the group’s accomplishments through the school year. Raices ended up meeting their money goal, now having the sufficient funds for this dinner celebration.

And this family dinner will be a special one, as it will be a farewell to the seniors who started the group three years ago. A sendoff to the original group members of Raices Encontradas

leaving the group in the hands of the underclassmen members to hopefully take the group to new heights and conduct more successful events just like this one.