Milligan College campus activities sponsored a Nerf gun battle in the hallways of Derthick on Nov. 21. Any and all students were invited. 

The Nerf war was held on all three main hallways of Derthick. In the halls, there were inflatable obstacles provided to use as shields from the crossfire of the Nerf guns. Nerf guns and ammunition were provided, but participants still brought their own guns and darts. 

There were three rounds of the war. The first round was every person for themselves in which all participants go at it until there’s a single person still standing. For the second round, everyone in attendance was split into two teams, and they played three games of capture the flag. Lastly, teams of four were randomly put together, and the last team standing won the round. While all three games had different objectives, there was one common theme through the night- don’t get hit. 

Capture the flag was not only the most played game out of the three, but it’s structure was completely uniquely compared to the other competitions. After the teams were divided into two, members of Team One were given a scarf to put on their arms to differentiate the teams. Next, the flags were hidden on the first and third floor. Each teams’ task was to find their opponent’s flag and return it to the second floor without getting shot. 

Each team won a round, however, whichever team used the third floor as homebase seemed to have an advantage that led to victory. This brought a “shoot out” in which members of both teams took turns shooting at a can to pick which floor their team would get for the tie-breaking game. Team Two won the shootout and chose the top floor, but lost despite the supposed advantage of the third floor, and Team One took the win for capture the flag.   

“I like how a group of students show up who may not know one another and get put on a team and immediately begin working together to try and capture the flag from the other team,” Director of campus activities Jason Onks said. 

Onks told the story of how Nerf battles came onto Milligan’s campus and Derthick’s halls. “A couple of years ago, I had a work-study student who was big into Nerf and we decided to give it a try,”  Onks said. With this tradition now being three years,  and improvement always being a point of emphasis, one can look forward to this event in the future. 

Headline photo: Students participate in a Nerf battle in Derthick Hall. Photo from Milligan Student Life.

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