Thanks to a 10th grade teacher at Ankeny High School, Sierra Lucht and Brandon Beecham have been able to transform the ISU table tennis club into something bigger than anyone could have hoped for.

The two Ankeny natives formed their strong bond with the sport by taking from Warren Lofgren, their 10th grade teacher in high school. He influenced the two to start a club at Ankeny, but because of the growing population, Ankeny High School was split into two separate schools.

With Lucht at Ankeny Centennial and Beecham at Ankeny, the two continued to spread their love of the game through both schools. But with college approaching, both were unsure of their future with the sport.

“I stumbled upon the table tennis club at Iowa State and at the first meeting there were three other people,” Beecham said. “They made me president and then I got [Lucht] involved too.”

Since the two sophomores have taken over as co-presidents, the club has had a dramatic rise in the number of members and brought back the competitive team after being absent for nearly seven years. 

The club has about 16 active members who attend the three weekly meetings at State Gym. Among those members, a select few play on the competitive team.

The competitive team is a member of the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association and resides in the Minnesota division. The Minnesota division is one of 30 divisions in the NCTTA.

“We mainly play against other Iowa and Midwest schools,” Lucht said. “Being new to the competitive side of table tennis, our team has a good shot at qualifying some people for nationals.”

To qualify for nationals, the club must place in the top two of any division. There is the coed team division, women’s division, singles and doubles.

Jikang Qu sports a perfect record with five wins and is arguably the Minnesota division’s best singles player. Qu is at first singles, while Rui Zou isn’t far behind at second singles.

Zou, like most other members, came from a foreign country. Zou started playing in China, her native country, at a young age and even picked up a coach to help her climb the ranks.

“Everyone plays in China,” Zou said. “That’s why the first thing I did when I arrived here was join the table tennis club.”

Zou, like many other members, plays table tennis because it was a part of her culture back in her native country and wants to grow the sport at Iowa State.

Currently, the only space the club receives is the wrestling room at State Gym and sometimes the Lied Recreation Athletic Center. Both Lucht and Beecham say that in order to grow the club, the extra space is needed.

“Our main goal right now is to receive more tables and practice space,” Lucht said. “Our members want a place to play on the west side of campus and right now we can’t provide them with that.”