Students faced off on the basketball courts this weekend to raise money for breast cancer research.

Gamma Phi Beta sorority held its third annual March Madness Basketball Tournament Sunday in the State Gym.

Thirty-one teams donated $20 per team to play basketball from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The proceeds will be donated to the Bliss Cancer Center at Mary Greeley Medical Center.

Ten of the six-member teams were made up of off-campus and residence hall students, and 19 were comprised of fraternities. There were also two sorority teams.

“It went really well,” said Lyndsey Fliehs, public relations vice president for Gamma Phi Beta, 318 Pearson Drive. “This is the most teams we’ve ever had.”

The philanthropy for breast cancer was started in honor of Cynthia Rose Peterson, the daughter of Gamma Phi Beta’s previous house parents, Lewis and Arlene Peterson. Peterson died of cancer in November 1987.

“Everybody knows somebody with cancer,” said Fliehs, junior in marketing. “It touches home for all of us.”

Gamma Phi Beta has 90 members, and about 70 members showed up and stayed all day working one-and-a-half hour shifts, said Carmen Ickes, Gamma Phi Beta’s philanthropy chairwoman.

Ickes, junior in Spanish, said the event ran smoothly.

“The guys are nice and respectful to each other. There were some heated games when the fraternity brothers played each other, but they were fun to watch,” she said.

The final match pitted team Caine, named after the sixth floor of Larch Hall, against Beta Theta Pi fraternity, 2120 Lincoln Way. The residence hall members won 49 to 35.

“It gives us some exercise we don’t usually get,” said Beta Theta Pi member Curtis Cullin, sophomore in journalism and mass communication.

Many of the members said they signed up because they knew members of Gamma Phi Beta and liked to play basketball.

“My sister is a Gamma Phi,” said Tim McCulloh, freshman in pre-business and member of the Caine team. “It’s a good thing to support. The Cyclones are playing so well, I want to get out and play as much basketball as possible.”

The winners of the women’s and men’s teams both won March Madness T-shirts and were invited to a formal dinner at Gamma Phi Beta.