Table tennis reaches nationals
Students Messanh Ameduite and Josiah Boda represent Liberty in tournament
The Liberty University Table Tennis Team concluded an unprecedented season of growth and heightened competition Sunday, March 27, after the team’s run in the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association’s (NCTTA) national tournament came to an end.
COMPETE — Teammates Josiah Boda and Messanh Ameduite posed after their NCTTA competition. Photo provided
This past year was the first time the Liberty team competed in NCTTA scheduled tournaments. After the team upset the University of Virginia and finished in second place in the Virginia Division Spring Tournament, the team was invited to compete in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Tournament, where Liberty faced tough competitors such as Duke and the University of North Carolina.
Messanh Ameduite, a medical student at Liberty’s College of Osteopathic Medicine, and Josiah Boda, a senior mathematics student, were then selected to represent Liberty in the NCTTA Men’s Singles National Tournament after their stand-out performances in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Tournament.
“The (Mid-Atlantic) tournament was a learning experience for the team, definitely, but Messanh and I played just well enough to be invited to go to nationals,” Boda said. “It was really exciting when we found out we were selected.”
There, Ameduite and Boda competed against some the best collegiate table tennis players in the nation. Being new to the heightened competition, neither player was able to pick up a win in the tournament’s round-robin style competition, in which players were put in groups of four and scheduled to play against each competitor in their group.
After struggling in the round-robin, Ameduite and Boda were placed in the consolation bracket of the tournament, where they faced other competitors who finished in the bottom half of their round-robin groups. In the first round of the bracket, both Ameduite and Boda were eliminated after losing in close matches.
Ameduite said both Boda and he were not deterred by their performance at the national tournament, though. He emphasized that it was the team’s first time playing competitively and that they were still getting used to competitive play.
“Playing in the national tournament was a great opportunity to represent Liberty University,” Ameduite said. “This was our first time we competed (at the national level). It was a great experience, and we’re going to apply what we learned. Next year, it will be a different situation.”
In the coming years, the team hopes to establish a regularly scheduled practice time, add to their recruiting base, and appoint an official coach to the team.
Currently, the team is made up of five women and seven men. Brandon Phelps, the team’s president, said he plans on continuing to try to find different ways to recruit interested and skilled players.
“One thing I do as president is go around campus a lot to set up tables and tell people that we exist,” Phelps said. “I also try put out the extra effort in going out to LaHaye and David’s Place to where there are table tennis tables, where I talk to people that are playing about the team.”
The team is sponsored by Liberty’s Student Government Association, and is therefore not considered an official club sport, making it much harder for the team to effectively recruit potential players since the team does not have a head coach and lacks the credibility and resources of a club sport.
The current members attempt to schedule a practice once a week, according to Phelps, but he noted it is difficult to plan around everyone’s schedules. In the future, the team hopes to increase the number of regular practices and scheduled meetings per week.
For Ameduite and Boda, preparing for the national competition meant practicing two or three times a week, often at six in the morning in order to work around each other’s busy schedules. Boda emphasized the immense skill and technique required when playing table tennis competitively.
“The mental aspect is really what’s hard,” Boda said. “You have to be rigorously focused the whole time or you’ll lose. Each point, you’ve got to know what you’re going to do.”
To find out more information about the Liberty Table Tennis Team, contact President Phelps at btphelps@liberty.edu, or look up the team on Facebook by searching Liberty University Table Tennis Team.
YOUNG is a feature reporter.