St. Thomas’s Student Homecoming Committee hosted a 4-on-4 football event at O’Shaughnessy Stadium Monday evening as a celebration to mark the start of homecoming week.

Five teams competed on two 40-yard fields set up in the stadium. The teams played two 10-minute halves and then swapped opponents in a round-robin style tournament.

“First game of the season here. We have a little bit of a tournament for homecoming,” senior Ryan Walters, captain of the team Bounty Gates, said. Walters also serves as an intramural commissioner.

“It’s a lot of fun to have intramurals back,” Walters said. “I’m involved in quite a few of them, it’s just great with friends and hanging out.”

Many players echoed Walter’s statement.

“(These kinds of events) got a lot of student engagement, in general,” senior Lucas Roessler, member of the team Glove Didn’t Fit, said. “Ever since COVID, obviously, that’s dropped off a lot. It’s pretty good to get some of the action back, even if we’re not fully there yet.”

Sophomore Logan Jones, captain of team Kirk’s Cousins, was happy that intramural sports are back.

“I missed it last year,” Jones said. “I mean, I was waiting for this all year and here it is. It’s good to be back at it, back at the grind.”

The competition started at 6 p.m. and lasted until 8 p.m.

The Student Homecoming Committee set up events throughout the week as a precursor to the homecoming football game against Valparaiso on Saturday.

Owen Larson can be reached at lars6521@stthomas.edu.