This past Sunday, Edina’s ComedySportz Team competed in the ComedySportz High School League Tournament, taking first place for the third year in a row. After a long season, the team is ecstatic that all their hard work has paid off.

The competition took place at the ComedySportz theater located in Uptown’s Calhoun Square. The competition consists of various improv games and performing scenes with judges awarding points as necessary. Meanwhile, a referee monitors the actions administering fouls as necessary.

“You get points awarded in a variety of different ways. One is by the number of eliminations your team gets compared to the other,” said team member and senior Brian Mironer. “Another is by the judges discretion, and the third is by the amount of times your team steps up. At the end, the team with the most amount of points wins.”

While they only competing against two other teams this year at the tournament, the other teams were hard to beat. “The competition was really hard!” said team member and senior Soph Wright. “All the participants are so talented and funny—it really came down to the speed at which we could come up with things.”

Even though it was a competition, team members said they were drawn to its fun nature rather than its intensity. “I love ComedySportz because it pushes me out of my comfort zone. I am shy, and I don’t talk very much, so improv is difficult for me,” said Wright. “The people are great at giving directions and positive encouragement, though, so I’ve learned quickly and have had fun doing it.”

The team members also enjoyed the different kinds of improv games. One in particular, Advice Panel, was a favorite of Mironer’s. In Advice Panel, four actors come up with different personalities based on an idea, usually a letter, and answer questions from the audience. “We played this game on our last rehearsal. The idea was the letter ‘O’. We ended up with Otto Von Bismarck, Okonkwo (yes, from “Things Fall Apart”), Mrs. Obama, and a person from the swing state of Ohio. Hilarity ensued. It was just awesome,” said Mironer.

The team got close this year, being able to react to any situation they might get into in order to improve. Important to ComedySportz, team members have to anticipate each others actions and work together to keep their dialogue going. This can be especially difficult on the spot and in front of the judges, but this years team worked in sync regardless of how wacky their stories became. “My favorite moment from this season was a scene with Jay Lennander, Rutger Henriksen, Chris Razidlo, and Daniel Sandberg,” said senior Wesley Muilenburg. “It was based around a Yugoslavian potato farmer being captured by America.”

While the competition is over, the ComedySportz team has one final performance coming up. It will be held in the EPAC theatre on Mar. 27th at 7:00 p.m., where they can showcase their talent to anyone who wasn’t able to come to a performance. After all their hard work, the team is happy to take home gold, while at the same time doing what they love.