LEXINGTON, S.C. — A former South Carolina Gamecock who had a brief appearance in the movie "Barbie" last summer is now competing for a national championship.
Luke Lorick will be in Rock Hill next weekend for the first Pop-A-Shot National Championship, an arcade-style basketball game. The competition will air on ESPN 2, and only eight people nationwide will be selected.
Lorick has had his Pop-A-Shot for about two years and tests out many games with his company, Tailgating Challenge.
"I just post some fun videos on social media on our platforms with it and so I was like, 'Man, I feel like I'm pretty good at the game,'" Lorick said. "And then, a couple months ago, Pop-A-Shot reached out and said, 'Hey Luke, we're doing a national championship. You should apply to see if you can basically be in it.'"
He said Pop-A-Shot will build a specific basketball setup with new dimensions no one has played on for the competition.
According to the Pop-A-Shot website, Lorick appears to be the only South Carolina native. The website also explains how the competition will work. The seeding round will be a single 45-second game, and the quarterfinals will be best of two out of three.
Lorick said the competition should last about an hour and will air on Friday, Aug. 2, at noon.
"To me, it's just a super fun game that I never thought there would be, like, a championship for it," Lorick said. "But again, just to be apart of it is going to be a lot of fun."
"I look forward to going out there, having a little fun," he added. "I think I'm the only Gamecock or South Carolina guy from that thing. So, South Carolina doesn't always get a chance for national championships, but we're going to try to bring one home."