Author Spotlight
Mia Vogel
He knew this was his moment. With a score of 20-17, junior Blake Atkinson looked at his partner with unwavering eye contact and a firm nod — their signature pre-point ritual. Atkinson passed the yellow ball to his partner, who passed it back, before striking the ball at the net, winning the point for the team and taking the win.
Atkinson was competing at the 2019 Midwest Regional Spikeball Tournament in Chicago, Ill. and knew he was at the pinnacle of his spikeball career. After two days of play, he made it to the Sweet 16, but lost in regionals 21-19.
Tournaments have recently started back up after being put on hold last year due to COVID-19 and Atkinson plans to continue competing and hopefully make it to nationals within the next few years.
“Since I’ve played before, I have pass to go back [to regionals] again whenever I want,” Atkinson said. “I’ll probably do that with the goal to make it to nationals.”
Atkinson first started playing spikeball the spring before his freshman year while on a trip with his friend junior Brad Baska in Seaside, Fl. After seeing countless YouTube videos of professional players, they caved, purchasing a set of their own to use at the beach. Atkinson just wanted to play for fun, but had no idea that this would be the stepping stone to a passion.
“Ever since then we just started playing a lot and we loved it and we’ll play with college kids and they bring a lot of energy to the game,” Atkinson said.
Atkinson and Baska began playing pick-up games with friends. As he realized spikeball was more than a hobby, he went on to partner with fellow recreational spikeball player junior Jack Shelton in higher-level competitions.
Atkinson tries to put plenty of time into the sport and organize different groups so that he can be exposed to a wide variety of competition.
“I’m constantly impressed by Blake’s dedication,” Shelton said. “He’s always texting me to come up and play at East and organizing groups to play together on weekends and after school.”
Practicing together two to three days a week and over the weekend helped grow their team chemistry. They began by playing in pick-up games then went onto searching for tournaments through the “Spikeball” app, which promotes tournaments and events near users.
Atkinson is considered “active” on the app by Spikeball’s standards. He’s participated in pick-up games and competed in two local tournaments alongside Shelton — even winning the championship in one of them.
As a result, Atkinson qualified for the Midwest Regional Spikeball tournament during his freshman year. There was only problem — he needed a teammate.
Luckily, Atkinson was connected through the app with a player from Chicago, Ill. who was staying in Kansas City, Mo. for a month.
“We just played for that whole month and he needed a partner for regionals so he asked if I wanted to come to Chicago and compete with him,” Atkinson said.
Atkinson instantly said yes. In a tournament with 64 teams, the duo made it to the Sweet 16, before losing in regionals.
“You can bond through playing for sure, because it’s a teamwork game,” Atkinson said. “You can’t just have one player be good and you win, you have to both be good at the game. You have to communicate well, you have to position well, tell [a teammate] what you need to do differently, to be able to win points and win the game.”
But competing wasn’t enough for Atkinson. He has also hosted two tournaments through the app, which took place at East and Meige. The 16 players each paid an entry fee and the first place winner received 75% of the pot and the runner up received the remaining 25%.
“I didn’t play in those tournaments because I couldn’t risk winning and taking people’s money, but it was a great learning experience to host the types of events that I play in all the time,” Atkinson said.
Now Atkinson plays casual pick-up games with friends and is a member of the SME Spikeball Club which was started earlier this year by seniors Spencer Newton and Will Brooker.
Although no plans for next year have been finalized, it’s a strong possibility that the club will be passed down to Atkinson.
“We barely beat him [in the last East tournament], but he’s definitely the best player there and we probably shouldn’t have won,” Newton said.
Along with running Spikeball Club, Atkinson plans to start competing in more high stake competitions again. The ultimate goal is to make it to nationals within the next couple years so he can continue his spikeball career through college since the sport is popular among young adults according to Atkinson.
“It’s a lot of extra time and effort, but it’s all worth it if I can eventually make it to the really high level tournaments and have the best players know my name,” Atkinson said.
Leave a Reply