Robert Morris University’s Sports Management Association (SMA) hosted their annual Dodge the Dark competition, a glow-in-the-dark dodgeball tournament, Friday night at the Campus Rec Center to raise money for the Mario Lemieux Foundation.

Overall, 10 teams consisting of six players each joined together for a night of food, drinks, and of course dodgeball. Each team had to pay $60 to enter the tournament.

The festivities kicked off around 5:30 p.m. followed shortly after by games beginning at 6:00 p.m.

The true focus of the night was raising money for the Mario Lemieux Foundation. According to the foundation’s website, they raise money for “funding cancer research and patient care and supporting families in challenging medical situations.”

Co-president of SMA, Maggie Scifo, said that the Mario Lemieux Foundation shares a lot of ideal and values with the Sports Management Association.

“We went with the Mario Lemieux Foundation because they worked with us really well and we had a lot of similarities in what we valued as an organization. I have personally had a family member who has been affected by cancer, so it is really special to me. I think it’s just a really great organization.”

The special thing about the event was the fact that it got college students to donate money to charity.

Scifo said that the main focus of the event (other than raising money) was to bring students together to have fun.

“I think it’s really great. It’s not a big ask of people, $10, come out and have a fun Friday night, get some free food.”

Dodge the Dark has been a campus-wide favorite for years and was finally brought back last year after being canceled because of COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021.

Scifo said it is important to bring events like this one back in order to get students on campus excited the way they were before the pandemic.

“It’s really nice to see, especially after COVID. There’re not so many people really doing much on campus, so we’re trying to reinvigorate that.”

When asked about the total amount of money raised, Scifo told Sentry Media that the number was not yet known, but she expects it to be somewhere around the $11,000 raised last year.

At the end of the night, team Lawn Street took on team Elevators in the championship, with team Lawn Street emerging victorious and becoming the 2023 Dodge the Dark champions.

For more information about additional events hosted by the Sports Management Association, check out revolution.rmu.edu.