Summon your Champion at Spree ’17
Spree 2017 was an event organised by BITS Pilani – Goa from the 3rd to the 5th of March at their campus at Sancoale, Goa. This non-profit event was organised for the purpose of promoting social interaction between colleges, domestic and international, and to foster a deeper love for sports among students.
Started in 2006, Spree has been outdoing itself with every passing year and this year was no exception, for the first time it’s campus hosted sports like Squash and Kabaddi apart from the classics like Football, Basketball, Badminton and Cricket that we saw in the previous instalments. Spree was backed by many big name sponsors and partners cementing the quality that the event puts out each year. Some of the big names included Vista Mind, YKA (Youth Ki Awaaz), Comedy Central, United Spirits, broadcast partners Neo Prime and Neo Sports, and Media Partners our very own Startup Goa.
Excitement for Spree was high with the aggregate of colleges that participated in this mega event and who would doubt that since Goa is known as a Hub of Sports and Sports Growth among its people. Spree aimed to broadcast an explicit message that ‘there is no greater glory than playing the game to your full potential’ and we are sure that the message was widely received.
Day 1 saw multiple favourites winning their matches early on. BITS FC, Jamia Milia and Chowgule all sailed through the group stages amidst the deafening cheers from the crowd. Basketball saw a shocker with the home team losing their first match to SRGI. However, the most exhilarating event of the day went to the inspiring conversation with World Cup winning Captain Kapil Dev. ‘face challenges head on’ were some of the wise words he relayed to the crowd before his departure.
Day 2 or as it was dubbed ‘Semi-final Saturday’ was just as exciting as day 1 with the matches picking up the heat with Flame vs BITS, the first of the Women’s Basketball matches. It ended with a nail biting 1 point victory for Flame. Football continued it’s excitement as BITS won their quarterfinal match by a margin of 2-0 against KJ Somaiya College of Engineering. Jamia Milia was among the other 4 teams to make it through to the Semis. Apart from the main sporting events, the informal events like Hogathon and the mock IPL auctions kept the crowd thoroughly entertained. The night’s entertainment was dominated by the Abhis Matthew and Sahil Shah, two of the most popular names in the Indian Scene.
The final day had the most thrilling ends to the matches with an upset to the BITS FC team losing out on penalties to Jamia Milia who went on to win the whole tournament. The BITS Girls Basketball team gave the home crowd some redemption by securing the second place beating MIT Manipal by a comfortable margin. NDA achieved victory in Squash beating Manipal 2-0 and Mayank from NDA secured the singles title in squash after defeating Vartik Shah from GDCH. The evening ended on a high note with a high power performance by The Local Train. They kept the entire crowd on the feet. Grooving to their well-known tunes.
Spree ‘17 was three days of pure sporting pleasure and many are already looking forward to the next instalment and all that it will offer.