By Alicia Colegrove

In the basement of the Adele H. Stamp Student Union, upbeat game music clashed with the sounds of bowling balls and pool cues as a small but diverse group of competitors gathered Thursday for TerpZone’s Mario Kart World Tournament. 

Seated before a wall of TVs and backed by rows of bowling lanes, six students faced off in a double-elimination, no-teams tournament in Mario Kart World, a 2025 racing game by Nintendo in which players compete to out-speed their opponents.

First and second-place winners got to pick between a $75 University of Maryland Bookstore gift card and a new pair of headphones. 

Competitors ranged from collegiate-level Mario Kart champions to complete beginners. Anthony Wilson, a freshman business management and analytics major, said the tournament was his first time playing. 

“It was kind of hard learning the new stuff on the controllers,” Wilson said. “But it was fun once I started to understand it.”

Amidst the stress of midterms, Wilson said it was rewarding to compete and take his mind off school, despite being a beginner. 

Nitya Jani, a graduate student majoring in human-computer interaction, joined the roster as a casual but experienced player. Having played the game by herself and with her brother, Jani said it was “fun to play with other people.”

Two members of UMD’s Mario Kart Club, Kyle Duong and Christopher Nagel, dominated the bracket as veteran players.

According to Nagel, a sophomore aerospace engineering major and the club’s treasurer, outside of TerpZone’s tournament, the two compete on the UMD Mario Kart Team, currently ranked #1 in the Collegiate Karting League for Mario Kart World.

“We’re seated to actually win this entire season coming up,” Nagel said.

Duong, the club’s president and a master’s student studying game, entertainment and media analytics, predicted the tournament would come down to him and Nagel, but said he wasn’t confident he could secure the win. 

“He hit platinum in World Lounge last season, and I only struck gold. So I’ll try my best to get an upset on him,” Duong said. 

Nagel said he humbly agreed he was the better player, but added it boiled down to friendly competition between teammates. 

“Every week we do a different track to time trial and see who can get the fastest time, and I’ve been dominating that so far,” Nagel said. “It’s kind of a friendly rivalry to see who can try and beat me.”

As the tournament went on, the competition slowly trickled down to the two top players as predicted. In the final match, Nagel and Duong selected their riders from a colorful cast of characters and pressed start on the final round to declare the winner. 

In a close race, Nagel ultimately secured the win, sweeping the tournament and taking home a new pair of headphones. The two finalists ended the deciding match with a friendly “GG” and fistbump.

Featured Image: Students sitting in TerpZone playing Mario Kart World during the tournament on March 5, 2026. Photo by Anika Stikeleather.