Congratulations to senior Ben Himmelman on achieving the title of best ping pong player in LOHS!

“I love ping pong, and I’ve been playing my whole life, so I knew it would be fun to play against my classmates,” said Himmelman. 

This last month, senior Stephen Lines, ASB vice president; senior Tino Mehaffey, ASB Recognition; and junior Mark Mankin, ASB Spirit, organized ping pong tournaments during lunch to add a little fun to the student bodys’ day. “Tino and I had run a gamepigeon tournament last year during online school and we wanted to hold something like that in-person now that we’re back,” says ASB Vice President Lines. 

“Anyone could participate, teachers included!” Lines continued.

“The sign-up process was pretty straightforward, all you needed to do was fill out the form we sent out and join the tournament remind and you’re in! We text the bracket and match details through the Remind,” Lines said.

For those who have not played ping pong before, the rules are simple: “…games are played first to 11(no deuce), and servers switch every two points. If you don’t show up to your match, you forfeit your match,” Lines explained. 

Tournaments were held outside of Joe’s Boathouse during both lunches, with two different brackets for each lunch. 

The final tournament was held February 25, between junior Cooper Whittington, who was the ultimate winner of A lunch and senior Ben Himmelman, the winner of B lunch tournaments. 

“[My] most challenging opponent was Ben because he beat me,” said Whittington. “[It was] exciting to see that other people like to play ping pong.”

 Himmelman agreed that  “Cooper Whittington was by far my most challenging opponent.” 

“This was the first time I’d played ping pong in over a year, so it was genuinely very memorable for me to realize the skills I once had,” he added.