Eastern baseball players, waiting out their game’s rain delay, watched through the chain link surrounding Coaches Stadium as the Greek community sank knee-deep into thick mud and cleaned off with a defeating splash into Campus Pond.

Sigma Chi fraternity walked away from Wednesday’s Tugs competition with the fastest win, defeating Phi Kappa Theta fraternity with a time of 0.27 seconds.

Glenn Oskvarek, a senior member of Sigma Chi, said this win was the fastest he has seen from his fraternity. Despite their victory, however, members of Sigma Chi plan on maintaining level heads going into the next round of competitions.

“We’re taking the mind set of one game at a time,” Oskvarek said. “It doesn’t matter who the competition is. We’re just going to go out there and give it our all and hope for the best.”

The second round of Greek Week’s competition continued Wednesday despite persisting rain and wet fields from hail earlier in the day.

The rain was no deterrent for the game’s competitors, and the consequential mud did not seem to affect the results, with half of the winners having tugged on the East side of the pond and the other half on the West side.

Tera Lesli, a junior member of Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority, shook from a sore body and said she felt their 2:30 victory over Delta Delta Delta sorority in every muscle.

“That mud was no joke, but we stuck it out and we got it,” she said.

Between the crowd’s cheering and the demands barked from her coaches, Lesli said she was able to deny her tiring muscles and literally pull through.

“They had us at the beginning almost but we stuck and we took them back,” she said. “If the crowd is telling to get down and do it you’re going to get down and do it.”

Sigma Pi fraternity earned the first win of the afternoon, with a 3:20 victory over Sigma Phi fraternity.

Terrence Redding, a senior member of Sigma Pi, said his fraternity’s tuggers have been training for the competition since the first day they were allowed to use the rope.

Although they beat their competition, Redding said the team knows what it needs to improve upon.

“It was a little longer than we would have hoped, but there’s always tomorrow,” he said.

He said no matter how close Sigma Pi comes to being the overall Big Man Tugs champion, the team will take each round one match at a time.

“We’re looking ahead to the next rope always. It’s not the championship we’re looking at, it’s who’s in front of us to get to that championship,” he said. “We’re never slowing down.”

Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity defeated Delta Tau Delta fraternity with a time of 1:18.

Chidi Obia, a senior member of Lambda Chi Alpha, said the team’s months of training helped them withstand the day’s elements.

“We started inside doing three on threes and four on fours to get our endurance up,” he said.

Sigma Nu fraternity’s 2:07 win over Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, marked the day’s last Big Men tug.

David Carroll, a junior member of Sigma Nu said the fraternity’s hard work paid off.

“It feels good that we put in that much time and effort and we were able to win,” he said. “I think this one got the pre-tug jitters out, so I think we’ll be fine from there.”

Kappa Delta sorority earned the women division’s quickest win with a 1:29 defeat over Sigma Kappa sorority.

Carly Bell, a sophomore member of Kappa Delta, said the team intends to “keep its eye on the prize” looking forward into the next round of matches.

Alpha Sigma Tau sorority won the first women’s match, beating Alpha Phi sorority in 1:56, and Alpha Sigma Alpha sorority trumped Delta Zeta sorority with a time of 1:55.

Both winning teams said each sorority is a hard competitor and they will head into their next matches thinking every team has trained equally as hard as theirs.

Moving forward, Friday’s competitions will be: Sigma Chi vs. Sigma Pi and Sigma Nu vs. Lambda Chi Alpha in the Big Men Division; Sigma Pi vs. Sigma Phi Epsilon, and Lamda Chi vs. Sigma Alpha Epsilon; and in the Little Men Division, and Alpha Sigma Tau vs. Alpha Sigma Alpha and Sigma Sigma Sigma vs. Kappa Delta in the Women’s Division.

Katie Smith can be reached at 581-2812 or kesmith2@eiu.edu.