Dan Branderhorst needed one good swing to finish it.

He didn’t get it.

Branderhorst, junior in finance, was paired with Xiaopeng Fang, graduate student in mechanical engineering, in Sunday’s championship match of the A (best) class of the intramural men’s table tennis doubles championships.

Going up against Zhaoqun Zhou, graduate student in physics and astronomy, and Yang Xu, graduate student in plant physiology, the final was arguably one of the closest matches overall. Both teams seemed very focused and determined in the first game, but Xu and Zhou prevailed. The second game was close and Fang and Branderhorst won it to keep the match going.

In the third match, Branderhorst could have won it, but he hit the ball too hard and missed the other side.

“I misread the spin on the ball, there was a lot of underspin on it, and it came off my paddle wrong,” Branderhorst said.

Zhou and Xu capitalized on the error to win the match and top off the men’s tournament in dramatic fashion.

Throughout Sunday evening, the east corner of Lied Recreation Center was alive with excitement when the table tennis doubles championship games began with the two women’s championships.

Following the first round of tournament play, all teams in the divisions had one chance to advance to the next round. If a team lost in the first round, it was still able to play for a T-shirt in the consolation bracket. There were three divisions — men’s, women’s, and co-rec. The men’s division was divided into three classes: A, B and C, with A consisting of highly skilled players.

The two championship games were played simultaneously. The first was a bout between the pair Rachel McDermott, senior in animal science, and Janeen Goedken, senior in child, adult and family services, and the team of Tracy Schuller, senior in marketing and Abby Nissly, senior in exercise and sport science. McDermott and Goedken forced the match to a third game but ultimately lost.

The other match featured Hailey Pugh, freshman in pre-business, and Michelle Reiter, sophomore in pre-business, facing off against Kari Kanne, sophomore in Spanish, and Jacci Hermansen, sophomore in animal science. Pugh and Reiter won the first game, but Kanne and Hermansen stepped up in the second game and came within three. Pugh and Reiter held on to win and take the match.

Championship play continued Monday night with six men’s games. The first two teams to play were in the B division. Game one pitted Saleh Tamim, senior in computer engineering, and Ibrahim Ali, senior in electrical engineering, against James and John Megivern, a senior and junior, respectively, in finance. The match consisted of good serves followed by poor returns and ended after the third game, which the Megivern brothers won.

For James, who won the table tennis singles in the fall, there was a feeling of accomplishment.

“It felt good to come back and win, since they beat us in the seeding round,” he said.

Match two featured Matt Lewis, junior in pre-business and Colby Depotovich, junior in marketing, playing the team of Tolga Sener, senior in industrial engineering, and Ben Lochard, freshman in art and design. After losing the first game, Lewis and Despotovich won the next two to win the match, giving them their second T-shirts for table tennis doubles.

“We’re next-door neighbors, so we play a lot recreationally and against his older brother, who’s a tennis player,” Lewis said.

In the first C division match, Brent Beswick, freshman in agricultural business, and his teammate Brad Howard, graduate student in mechanical engineering, faced Steve Biver, sophomore in civil engineering, and Tony Becker, junior in finance. Biver and Becker won the first two games to take the match.

For the second C match, it was Nathan Scott, senior in mechanical engineering, and Justin Froehlich, junior in business, against Nick Belt, freshman in pre-business, and Kyle Martinson, freshman in pre-business. Belt and Martinson held a commanding lead to win the first game. Scott and Froehlich kept the second game close but eventually gave way, losing in straight games.

The final two matches of the night would be the championship games between the highly skilled players in the A division. Two teams were moved up a class to make the division bigger and were eliminated after their first matches, leaving four teams.

The first contest matched Ajay Rupramka, senior in transportation and logistics and Firoz Ali, graduate student in chemistry, against Jeremiah Stearns and Joe McElhiney, both seniors in management information systems.

The win for Zhou and Xu capped the highly competitive evening.