On February 27, Penn State Campus Recreation hosted a basketball skills challenge for competitors to show off their ability to knock down threes and score buckets in a hurry.

Per usual, Onward State was feeling competitive and had four staff members compete in the event. Here’s how it went down.

Second-year staffers Michael Siroty and Mitch Corcoran competed in last year’s Campus Recreation Combine and entered the IM Building feeling good about their basketball skills. Meanwhile, new members Gabe Fleuhr and Darrius Hamilton wanted to make a statement early in their Onward State tenure.

After arriving at the IM Building, the guys quickly found out they weren’t allowed to warm up, which they were disappointed about.

Michael decided to pull the trigger and be the first of the group to go in the three-point shooting competition.

Sporting a Duke Jared McCain jersey, Michael had a rough start. He only made two shots through the first three racks, which offered five balls each. However, Michael got hot and knocked down eight of his last 10 shots, one of which was a two-point money ball, so he finished with a score of 11.

Up next was Gabe, who had on a Carmelo Anthony McDonald’s All-American jersey. Simply put, his first shot did not go as planned, as he hit the side of the backboard. However, Gabe did hit a few shots and ended his round with a score of three.

Mitch stepped up to the three-point line next, and he turned a lot of heads with his full throwback Mike Bibby uniform from the Vancouver Grizzlies. Similar to Michael, Mitch got off to a shaky start, but after hitting threes at each point of the arc, he scored an eight.

With Michael at the top of the leaderboard, Darrius was the final Onward Stater to shoot, and unlike the rest of the group, went with a typical T-shirt look. It might’ve hurt his shooting, though, as he only sank two shots to finish last in that portion of the competition.

Michael held onto the lead with Mitch not far behind as the four went to the other side of the court to compete in the hot-shot challenge, where players had one minute to make as many shots as possible. Any makes inside the paint counted for one point, outside the paint for two, and beyond the arc for three.

The order remained the same, and Michael had a simple approach: right-handed layups only. Quickly grabbing his rebounds, Michael put down 34 layups to bring his final score to 45. Being the first competitor, he wasn’t sure if 34 was good or not.

Gabe went next and went for two-pointers, shooting jumpers off the backboard from each block, but scored less than 20.

Then, Mitch used a combination of the two strategies he saw, taking one block jumper and one layup before doing the same on the other side. Mitch left a lot of his shots short, though, and finished the hot-shot event with an 18, which he wasn’t too pleased with.

The closer was Darrius, and he had the same approach as Mitch, quickly taking jumpers and layups. Michael watched closely, hoping to remain on top of the standings.

Darrius, like Mitch, had trouble with the block jumpers and scored a 20.

Onward State has found its hooper. Michael Siroty is your 2025 Campus Recreation Basketball Skills Competition winner.