Carleton’s quidditch team played their first game of the season Oct. 23, losing the decisive third match 110-20 to St. Lawrence University (SLU) in a friendly scrimmage at Anniversary Field.
Carleton and SLU drew the first two matches of the three-game series, with scores of 50-50 and 40-40 respectively, before the Canton, N.Y. based team took control and finally broke the tiebreaker in the third and final match.
Muggle quidditch, developed from J.K. Rowling’s renowned Harry Potter series, is played with seven players on the field at all times. The seven players encompass one goalkeeper, who guards the hoops; three chasers, whose job is to handle the quaffle and to throw it into the hoops; two beaters, whose goal is to stop the chasers from scoring; and the seeker, who is in charge of finding and catching the snitch.
The game ends when the seeker catches the snitch, which is worth 30 points. The quaffle, when thrown through the hoops, is worth 10 points.
Interestingly, quidditch is also a full contact co-ed sport, meaning tackles and takedowns are acceptable.
Derek King, SLU’s team captain, said he was glad Carleton had set up this exhibition game and that this was the first real game for his squad outside of their university. He also declared his team’s plans to compete in the Quidditch World Cup in New York City on November 13-14, in which Carleton also hopes to participate.
Despite the loss, Carleton quidditch captain Andrea Hill said she saw many positives from her team in their first competitive action of the season.
“I don’t think we played that badly, even though it was the first game for a lot of players,” she said. “It was a great experience and as the game went on, people got the idea of strategy. Everyone’s excited to be playing quidditch.”
And Carleton’s Shamit Tushakiran, who plays primarily in the role of beater, can attest to that.
“The game was definitely intense and we learned a lot by playing against another university,” he said. “We noticed a lot of things that we could improve on that we wouldn’t necessarily have seen while practicing amongst ourselves.”
Once the three-game series came to an end, the teams played in an additional friendly scrimmage. Both teams traded players with one another, giving the players a chance to learn new tactics along with getting to meet other quidditch enthusiasts.