Day Two of the Ping Pong Club’s Students vs.Teachers Tournament concluded on Oct. 26 with sophomore Palmer McNulty and freshman Leo Cheng as the victors.

Similar to Day One, the tournament was held in LGI 2, with two teacher teams and two student teams facing off.

Computer science teacher Trent Landry partnered with history teacher and club sponsor James Ware to make up the first team of teachers. They played against juniors Veer Tummala and Om Patel, who are both students in Landry’s AP Computer Science Principles class.

“I have a lot of students that are playing in the ping pong tournament, and I was requested by several people,” Landry said. “I could not let them down.”

Although his team lost 0-2, Landry maintains a positive outlook.

“I’m disappointed in myself that I didn’t play better, but I gave it my best,” Landry said. “That’s all you can really do.”

In the second match, McNulty and Cheng competed against Spanish teachers Daniel Ramirez and Mica Segal de la Garza.

For the teachers, this year’s ping pong tournament was not their first. Segal was a participant in the tournament last year and partnered with Italian teacher Maria Borsa.

“I remember [the tournament] last year was one of my favorite events,” Segal said. “So I made sure to get involved this year.”

“It really brought back memories from 2017 when the club first started,” Ramirez said. “I really liked playing ping pong [back then], and [it’s great] to be able to play [together] with a teacher that [taught back when I was a student].”

Even though Segal thought she and Ramirez held up against the students pretty well, McNulty and Cheng took the victory in a close 2-1 match.

With both teacher teams eliminated, the final round consisted of Tummala and Patel facing off against McNulty and Cheng.

The game was neck and neck with the match score tied at 1-1 until McNulty and Cheng scored six points in a row in the beginning of the third round.

With this huge lead, McNulty and Cheng coasted to the final score of 11-6, concluding the tournament and triumphing over Tummala and Patel to become the Day Two champions.

However, this outcome did not diminish Patel’s competitive spirit.

“Second place is the first [place] loser,” Patel said. “It feels like we lost because how are you going to get to the finals and lose? That just means you didn’t work hard enough.”

Tummala looks forward to next year’s ping pong tournament as another opportunity to compete for the champion title.

“Next year, we [will] come back bigger, better, stronger,” Tummala said.

McNulty, fresh off the win, encourages both students and teachers to enter the tournament next year.

“Everyone should come and try to beat us next year,” McNulty said. “It doesn’t matter how old you are. If you can pick up a paddle, you can get the smoke.”

To stay updated about future Ping Pong Club events, join its Remind @bpingpong or follow its Instagram @bhs.pingpongclub.