StewHart claims this year’s Nationball title after defeating the new challenger, Blackstone Hall, in the final round. Stewart last won Nationball in 2009.

“It’s always fun just to come out to Nationball ― try our best. But you know, winning tonight was definitely a blessing and we really weren’t expecting it,” said David Kennedy, junior biological chemistry major and StewHart resident.

Blackstone Hall kicked off its debut with a defeat against Alpha, which followed with a win against the Off Campus Community, advancing them to the final round against StewHart.

“Blackstone’s premiere, that’s what I’m most excited about. It’s our first night out so it’s time for us to play as a dorm, it’s awesome. All the Emerson guys are up with Blackstone so it’s super rad,” said junior marketing major Andrew Divjak, a previous Emerson resident assistant.

A limit of 30 players from each residence community was implemented in the game between OCC and Blackstone.

“I guess it makes it more fair because we have more people but at the same time, we have more people that can get out,” said Becky Ulrich, junior elementary education major and OCC resident.

Sigma residents continued the tradition of protecting Alpha in place of last year’s champions, Emerson Hall. Sophomore communications major and Sigma resident Tim Cruz said Sigma and Alpha have a long-standing relationship.

“We’ve always been helping out Alpha with trash and so we were like ‘you know what? Let’s go hard. Let’s do it and have some good fun with the team,’” Cruz said.

Student Programming and Activities, a new organization this fall semester overseeing  campus-wide, student-run events, planned this year’s Nationball. Due to the split of Associated Students into SPA and the Student Government Association, Nationball is one of the events under SPA’s oversight.

“We want it to be a positive environment. In the past I know that it gets a little heated, but we just really want everyone to be cool, have fun and just have a great time,” said Adam Washington, the special events coordinator of SPA.