With Elizabethtown College’s COVID-19 restrictions and many campus activities being hosted virtually, students from a wide range of backgrounds are in search of extracurricular activities to participate in with their friends. For many of these students, intramural sports are the perfect way of getting out of the dorm room, staying active and spending time with friends in a safe and healthy way.

Currently, badminton is the only intramural sport available for students to play, but in the past there have been a number of other sports including soccer, pickleball, corn hole and basketball. Students are also looking forward to playing flag football later in the spring semester.

Sophomore Avery Roberts plays intramural badminton and said, “I don’t play any [official] sports for Etown but…I’ve played corn hole…and I hope to be able to play flag football as well.”

Sophomore Mary Huebler said, “I chose to do badminton so I would have something to do to get me outside of the dorm and to hang out with friends.” 

Similarly, first-year pole vaulter for the Etown track team Jordan Figueroa said, “I chose to do badminton because it sounded like something fun for me and my friends to do,”

Some students even picked badminton back up again. “I chose badminton because I really enjoyed playing [it] in my backyard when I was younger,” first year student Lori Schlosser said.

First-year student Abby Bernard said she decided to do badminton because she is not very athletic but thought it would be a blast. “I [also] played pickleball intramurals last semester and loved it,” Bernard said.

Needless to say, badminton intramurals have been a huge success during the first couple of weeks back on campus. The activity is giving students a reason to get out of their dorms, be active and spend time with their friends. These students, and many more, are overly excited for the return of official spring sports to Etown.

“[It will] bring back a sense of normalcy to people’s lives,” Huebler said. 

Bernard added, “I am very excited for sports to return to Etown. I feel like it makes the campus atmosphere so much more alive and gives all the athletes a chance to do what they love best.”