On Friday Sept 18, Griswold Gym hosted the first day of a volleyball tournament with not only Millikin University, but also five other schools attended the tournament: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, St. Mary’s College, Webster University, Westminster College, and University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse.

The theme for the night was superheroes and supervillains. The students section was encouraged to attend the game and cheer for the volleyball team wearing something related to either superheroes or supervillains. At the game, the Big Blue cleared the house winning both matches for the night.

The first match was against Webster in which Millikin won 25-9, 25-22, and 25-20. The team went on the next match against Westminster where the team won in three close matches with the scores 25-22, 25-21, and 25-20 and thus bringing the total record for the season to seven wins and four losses. While the student section theme for the night was superheroes vs supervillains, there were only a few students who took part in the theme.
The low participation in the superhero themed game was most likely because the two games had a relatively low attendance from the student section despite the game taking place during fall family weekend as well as a theme for the game being based off of a popular franchise.

With the relatively low attendance from the student, this means that only a few students took part in the event. The student attendance was relatively low, but many parents and family members did come out to watch the team play.
According to the official statistics of the matches, the first game had 100 people attending the game and the second game had 75 people attending. These numbers may not cover the people watching the game since Griswold has multiple entrances; it is possible that there may have been more in attendance than stated.

It was also not advertised as being a tournament on flyers that had been placed around campus, so many student more than likely left after the first match either not realizing that there was a second match or didn’t have time to watch another match. The low attendance could’ve been in part to Fall Family Weekend happening and many students wanted to do things with their families instead of attending a volleyball game.

Another factor that could be considered in the low attendance could have been in part to the game not being advertised well enough. While there were flyers hanging up around campus, there is a chance many students did not see them and thus did not know about it. Besides the poor advertising and taking part during fall family weekend, a final factor could have been the superhero theme. While superheroes are popular right now, the theme itself may not have attracted enough people to the game if all; it could have been simply wear something superhero related, like a Captain America T-Shirt, to the game.