Welcome back to the land of the Weather Machine! Good thing the Machine was working, since it’s the last of the great outdoors many of us will get to enjoy once classes start and we start holing up in the depths of Firestone. And what a perfect day for the sixth annual Campus Rec Quidditch Tournament between the residential colleges.
The final match was between Butler and Mathey, and ended when both teams made sprints for Cat Lambert ’15, a rugby player acting as the golden snitch. Sara Ronde ’16, a track runner in Mathey, chased Lambert around Alexander Hall and finally caught her, leading Mathey to victory. “I didn’t even know what the seeker was and they were just like, ‘Run!’ and I said, ‘I can do that.’”
Following the capture of the snitch, the Golden Broom was formally passed from Whitman College, last year’s champion, to the Mathey team.
Spencer Caton ’14, Ronde’s RCA, couldn’t have been prouder. “She’s got great things ahead of her,” he predicted. “You grow up watching Quidditch on TV and you try and practice…This match was where practice meets dedication and dedication meets mastery. All together, that makes the Golden Broom.”
“It looks funny to be running around with a pool noodle between your legs,” admitted Matt Frawley, Director of Student Life for Mathey and also the coordinator of the frosh-week Quidditch match. But the games are “a lot of fun” and are great for building college loyalty and for having some good, silly fun before classes begin. While admittedly happy that Mathey came out as the champions, Frawley is still looking for Wilson College to take home the Golden Broom–Wilson is the only college without a title, and he’ll root for them next year so long as they’re not facing Mathey in the finals.
With its gothic architecture and stately dining hall, Mathey (prounced ‘Maddie’) looks just like Hogwarts. That, and the fact that it boasts Blair Arch, the largest arch on campus and home to regular a capella concerts, means that Mathey is the most featured dorm in Princeton brochures. Mathey-ites also brag about their location right next to Nassau Street, Princeton-town’s main thoroughfare, lined with ritzy clothing stores and restaurants.