To the audience in the auditorium on Feb. 9, the judge makes an announcement: “ComedySportz is a sport.”

To the participants and the audience, the statement seemed obvious, as teams had just competed, score points and determined a champion. But no balls, lanes, laps or courts were involved.

Sophomore Claire Hunter joined ComedySportz as a freshman and has been on the team for two years. “I really wanted to do it the first time I heard about it was in eighth grade, so thought it sounded really cool and wanted to do it in high school,” Hunter said.

Hunter joined after multiple friends said she would be good at it and convinced her to try out. Hunter said, “A lot of my friends thought that I should and I saw (ComedySportz) and thought it was really interesting.”

The ComedySportz High School League team makes tryouts less nerve wracking by being accepting of everyone who tries out. “I was really really nervous, but honestly it was a good environment and a good time when I tried out, but I was still pretty nervous,” Hunter said.

Hunter said ComedySportz is not difficult to time manage and that after-school commitments are flexible. “Practices are only Fridays, and Fridays are at the end of the week and there’s not a lot of sports practices. It’s pretty lenient,” Hunter said.

The team’s relationships differentiate this ComedySportz team from the rest. “We have such good chemistry as a team. We’re all just buds; it’s not like the seniors hang out with the seniors. We’re all just talking to each other and it’s a good environment to bounce off ideas, which is really good,” Hunter said.

Everyone on the team specializes in his or her own specialty. Hunter said, “Everyone is good at different games, but we all come up with very original material.”

The team practices by playing different games. “We do four corners, which is where four people would stand in a box and two people in the front do a scene and it rotates. We have a pun game,” Hunter said.

Practices consist of relearning games a well as preparing for upcoming matches. “We practice in the green room so we go down and do some warm-ups before we actually start playing games. We have newbies that we have to teach games to and some of us have to relearn the games,” Hunter said.

The team lost to Bishop Chatard on Feb. 15.

To Hunter, the ComedySportz team is extremely close. “This one match last year all of the graduated seniors were in a scene together and during the entire scene everyone was laughing and there wasn’t a minute of silence and it was awesome. Everyone was just dying.”

Other team members this year include seniors Lillian Moffatt, Liam Moore and Ethan Gogel, juniors JJ Lay, Mary-Benning Cannon, Connor Helmen and Sammy Kacius, and sophomores Claire Hunter and Ashley Lay.