Casey Cougar to compete in mascot quarterfinals

Casey Cougar is moving on to the quarterfinals of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) mascot competition after a pool play victory on March 7.

MVNU defeated Cadmar the Warrior of Corban University, Rowdy the RedHawk of Martin Methodist College and Rufus the Red Wolf of Indiana University East.

Of the 1,642 votes, Casey received 36 percent or 591. Rufus earned 24 percent, Cadmar brought in 22 percent and Rowdy finished with 18 percent.

Casey Cougar will battle The Bear from the University of Pikeville in Kentucky for the quarterfinal matchup tomorrow, March 13-14.

The Bear finished the last Twitter poll with 774 votes or 42 percent of 1,842 total participants.

The winner of the quarterfinal match will move on to the semifinal round on March 20-21. The final championship voting will take place March 23-24.

Casey Cougar clinched the Crossroads League championship title in the first-ever mascot challenge on Feb. 16. MVNU beat out Norm the Forester from Huntington University.

After three close days of online voting, the Twitter poll ended with 1,177 votes for Casey Cougar and 1,002 for Norm the Forester. MVNU claimed 54 percent of the total votes.

The Crossroads League began the competition between nine of the 10 member schools on Jan. 26 as part of a nationwide mascot challenge. The Goshen College Maple Leafs were not represented in the challenge due to not having a mascot.

The opening round of voting took place on Facebook. Casey Cougar earned the fourth seed in the league with 133 votes.

In the quarterfinals, which took place on Twitter, Casey Cougar (377 votes) defeated Sir Red from Grace College (334 votes) sending MVNU to the semifinals.

There, MVNU defeated Wesley Wildcat from Indiana Wesleyan University with 1,865 votes. The number of participants set the record for the Crossroads League Mascot Challenge. Wesley Wildcat fell short with only 800 votes for IWU.