The Southern Miss Quidditch team attended its first tournament of the season, the Crawfish Classic II, in New Orleans Saturday.

Other teams attending the tournament included Loyola, Tulane and LSU. The scores were USM vs LSU 80-180, USM vs Loyola 0-140 and, finally, USM vs Tulane 40-200.  Overall, Loyola won the tournament, but the Southern Miss Quidditch team’s captains are still proud of the team.

“This was the first tournament for all of our new recruits and they definitely got a feel for the sport,” the captains said via the Southern Miss Quidditch Facebook page.

For those of you who are not familiar with the sport, Quidditch started out as an adaptation of the sport from the Harry Potter series. Over the course of 10 years, it has become an international, co-ed and full-contact sport.

PVC pipes are used as broomsticks, slightly deflated dodgeballs for bludgers, volleyballs for quaffle and the snitch runner has a tennis ball inside yellow fabric tied to his shirt. Quidditch is a combination of rugby, dodgeball, flag football and basketball, and it even uses some soccer strategy

The core values of the USQ (United States Quidditch) are “competition, creativity and community,”  according to the International Quidditch Association Rulebook.

“I feel like there is a large stereotype with people thinking that we are, I guess, a bunch of nerds for lack of better words, running around playing some fantasy game,” said Heather Burg, co-captain and south team’s representative for U.S. Quidditch. “But we are a very competitive sport. We do our best to represent that.”

Southern Miss Quidditch team captain and junior English major Anna Hotard was optimistic about the team’s chances against the other schools when asked about her expectations before the tournament.

There are 15 new recruits on the team and this was their first Quidditch experience with other teams.  There is a lot of athleticism and positivity throughout the team, so Hotard has faith that this year’s team will work well together.