Courtesy Veronica Droser

The Guitar Hero Challenge, held in the Student Union Ballroom at the University of Massachusetts last Sunday marked Iota Gamma Upsilon’s very first charity event of the year.

The sorority held the event to raise money for the Baystate Hospital’s Children’s Wing, or more specifically, the Miracle Fund. This organization is made for children who have suffered from head traumas, cancers and other serious illnesses. After planning the event for many weeks, the girls were happy with the results.

To help make the day successful, they contacted many local restaurants and companies for donations and advertisements. Iota Gamma Upsilon sold raffle tickets for prizes such as gift certificates to Pasta y Basta, among others. CampusLive.com provided them with free advertisements on their Web site, and for the actual event, they ran a table with free T-shirts and information regarding their homepage.

Also present in the ballroom was the Student City table, with representatives from SpringBreak.com. They donated two free spring break trips as part of their contribution to the raffle, and also sold Rockstar Energy Drinks at a discount price to help promote the product.

The games began a little after 1 p.m., and after signing up for a specific level, those who were competing were sent to a certain section of the ballroom to start playing. The “easy,” “medium” and “hard” levels all had a handful of gamers at each station, but the “expert” level drew the most Guitar Hero fans.

More than 30 people entered the hardest tier, only for the crowd to be whittled down to two. Amongst the competitors were college students, graduates and even one 11 year old, Sammy, from Haverhill, Mass. He arrived with his friend, David Hanger, 18, from Lowell, Mass. Both were lucky enough to advance to the third round, though Hanger just barely qualified with a 1,000 point lead that he claimed would have only measured to about four missed notes out of the hundreds played during one song.

He lost to his younger friend in the fourth round, but claiming a broken “whammy” bar was what cost him the win.

Besides broken equipment, other difficulties the players encountered were distractions from the crowd, other competitors, and even the other TVs that were running too closely to one another for the players to concentrate on their songs. One group had to stop at one point because the setting on the game was configured to “lag” in accordance with a High Definition TV. Despite all these minor distractions,, the players were fairly successful in battling in a fair manner.

Expert level players were required to score above 85 percent on “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones to advance to the next round. Everyone achieved this; however, the real challenge was the second song, the Guns ‘N’ Roses classic “Welcome to the Jungle,” where a score of 95 percent or higher was necessary to continue.

As the elimination rounds proceeded in the expert level, many people were sent home empty-handed. Once the fourth rounds started, the Iota Gamma Upsilon sisters picked songs randomly for each pair of competitors.

The competition brought out players from all skill levels. Competing in the easy level was Nicole Szamrej, who had never played Guitar Hero before this event, testing her skills with “Sweet Child of Mine” by Guns ‘N’ Roses.

“I wanted to stop by Iota Gamma Upsilon’s charity event because I really agree with the cause,” said Szamrej, a Sigma Kappa sister. “The Baystate Hospital’s Children’s Miracle Fund is a great organization that I have helped in the past, and I wanted to show my support.”

Although she did not make it to the final round, Szamrej said that the day was really successful because funds raised from the event went to a good cause.

Tasha Espandez, from Lawrence, Mass., was the final victor of the easy level. Espandez, a recent Clark University graduate, was visiting her sister for her birthday weekend, and had competed to try to win a prize. She received a gift certificate for dinner in town after beating her opponent in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Freebird.”

On the medium level, Espandez’s brother, Carlos, took the win by again defeating “Freebird.” Each final round was played on the large screen projector, and the crowd watched with anticipation as the players battled through the tough solo. He, too, received a gift certificate, and will enjoy dinner at Pioneer Valley Pizza.

During the hard-level final round, Peter Abruzzese was cheered on by his girlfriend in the competition’s third and final playing of “Freebird.” He won by a large percentage, however, and received $25 to Rolando’s, the new restaurant in downtown Amherst.

The finals for the expert level were the most intense by far. “Through the Fire and Flames” was the last song of the day, an immensely difficult number by Dragonforce. Eric Feeley emerged as the UMass champion for 2008, and received a gift certificate for dinner at a local eatery.

The day concluded as the raffle winners were announced and the sorority thanked everyone for stopping by. They hope to make this an annual event and continue to help the Children’s Miracle Fun for the Baystate Hospital in the future.

Sarah Albert can be reached at [email protected].