University of Virginia School of Law students hosted 47 law schools and raised $22,500 for charity over the weekend as part of the 36th annual North Grounds Softball League Invitational.

UVA Co-Rec Gold advanced to the final game in the co-rec bracket but was defeated by Florida Levin College of Law’s team on Sunday. Florida State College of Law won the Regular League title, topping UVA Iron III, an alumni team.

Corec Gold
UVA Co-Rec Gold

UVA Co-Rec Beach and UVA Co-Rec Denim opened the tournament with an opening pitch by Professor G. Edward White. After initial round-robin play, the teams with the best records competed in NCAA-style brackets to determine the two champions of the tournament.

The invitational featured 83 teams in total from law schools across the Eastern half of the United States, stretching from Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts to Illinois, Georgia and Michigan. The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, next door to UVA Law, also competed.

UVA Co-Rec Gold reached the finals with a walk-off hit against Georgetown. The team hit the home run limit in the first round, against Chicago.

Macey Colbert ’19 was this year’s NGSL commissioner. Third-year students Ali Goldman and Janie O’Connor organized and hosted the event as tournament directors, while second-years Brooke Bean and Katherine Whisenhunt served as head field monitors.

The invitational will donate $20,000 of the proceeds to ReadyKids, a local organization that provides early childhood learning programs and other services for disadvantaged children, and $2,500 to UVA Law’s Public Interest Law Association to fund summer public service jobs for students.

“Supporting and giving back to the community is really what the tournament is all about,” Goldman and O’Connor said in a statement. “Softball is a special tradition of the law school and it was so much fun to play it with our future colleagues!”

Founded in 1819, the University of Virginia School of Law is the second-oldest continuously operating law school in the nation. Consistently ranked among the top law schools, Virginia is a world-renowned training ground for distinguished lawyers and public servants, instilling in them a commitment to leadership, integrity and community service.

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