Last night at the Intramural Building, Intramural men's volleyball team, Traveling Circus, proved that they were more than freaks and clowns .

Traveling Circus defeated H. Town Smackdown to win the IM men's minor volleyball championship.

With the women's minor semi-finals on the next court, Traveling Circus; made up of James Boyd (junior-journalism), Matt Holmes (junior- CAS), Mike Boyd (junior-mechanical engineering), Rob Brennan (junior-architectural engineering), Karl Habsburg (junior-marketing) and Ralph Kreider (junior-architectural engineering); swept H. Town Smackdown to win the IM men's minor volleyball championship, winning both games 30-24.

Traveling Circus beat Happy Valley, -- one of the two teams to earn a first-round bye in the IM playoffs -- in the semi-finals to earn the rite to Play H. Town Smackdown in the championship.

Traveling Circus was leading the first match by 23-22, they pulled away with six straight points, reaching the game point. H. Town Smackdown added two points, until Traveling Circus ended the first game, 30-24.

The second game echoed the first game as Traveling Circus failed to pull away from H. Town Smackdown, even calling a timeout, before Traveling Circus went up 26-17.

Traveling Circus then made several errors allowing H. Town Smackdown to score the next five points. H. Town Smackdown crept back to 26-22.

"We were in that rut for a while at 26, but we found it in ourselves to come back," James Boyd said. "It's a mental game we had to get it out of heads, clear our minds, stick to our game plan, we knew we were the better team, we just had to play like it."

Traveling Circus took four of the last six points to win the title.

For Traveling Circus, the win came after three years of IM volleyball full of disappointments.

"[Winning the championship] feels good. It's my third year playing [IM volleyball], all the other years I've played we've been embarrassed pretty bad. This feels great," James Boyd said.

Boyd added that the same four players have been playing for all three years, some of whom played volleyball in high school.

One player thought he knew the reason, albeit sarcastically, for the Traveling Circus's success.

"I think it was that one practice we had during the season," Holmes said.