A giant pickle walks into North Penn High School on a Monday night; no, there’s no punchline, it’s North Penn’s second annual pickleball tournament.

North Penn’s Pickleball club had its second annual pickleball tournament on Monday, March 18th. The tournament consisted of 44 teams of two and students from all three grades came out to determine the pickleball champion.

“I love tournaments because they bring everyone together and are more organized than regular club meetings. They welcome friendly competition and really bring everyone together,” Co-president Ryan Casper shared.

Originally five dollars to join the tournament, the Pickleball club decided to make participation free to encourage more students to come out and play.

“We had an event last year and it went over really well so we decided we should do it again this year,” Co-president Nate Schlegel explained. “At first we were going to do an entry fee to get club dues going, but we figured more people would join and walk in if there wasn’t.”

In the past two years, the club has vastly grown and the size of the tournament has practically doubled.

“We had about 25 teams last year and now we have 44,” Schlegel said.

The tournament players ranged from students who barely knew what pickleball was, to some who would consider themselves experts in the field.

“This is such a fun event, I did it last year so of course I was going to do it again this year,” Senior Maddie Hanrahan explained.

Members of the pickleball board of directors along with advisor Mr. Joel Evans organized the event to make it accessible for as many students as possible.

“The guys came to me and told me they wanted to do a tournament and when I asked why, they said they wanted a bunch of people to learn how to play pickleball, have fun, get together, and have it be this really cool fun social event,” Evans said. “They wanted to do it at night so more people could come and be exposed. We had 44 teams this year, it’s a great turnout and everyone looks like they’re having a really great time.”

After the night had dwindled down and only two of the 44

original duos that had participated were left, Tanook Perera and Henry Jacobs defeated second place team Ryan Casper and Cullen McCann 11-9.

The event was a huge success and the club hopes to host another tournament in the near future. For more information on the North Penn Pickleball club contact advisor Joel Evans @[email protected] or @nppickleballclub on Instagram.