By Catharine Runion · Community Editor
Last Thursday, Oct. 2, the junior and senior classes gathered to officially kick off the Homecoming season with the college’s annual Powderpuff Football Game.
It was everything you would expect from a traditional football game: constant action, enthusiastic cheerleaders and nail-biting gameplay — except the roles were entirely switched. The girls got a chance to show their prowess on the field, and the guys cheered their hearts out on the sidelines.
The two teams were divided by class with the cheer squads also following suit. Though the seniors rallied together for a resounding victory, the juniors gave them a run for their money.
Many of the girls involved had been waiting for a chance to play for years.
“I’ve wanted to play Powderpuff since I heard about it freshman year, just because I love football. Unfortunately, we were only able to practice once before the game, but we still came together and made a couple key stops to hold the seniors to only one touchdown,” junior Jacqueline Marriott said.
For Julia Sikora and the rest of the senior team, this was personal. She talked about how their defeat last year as juniors motivated them to do even better this year as seniors.
“The seniors came back from a devastating loss last year to win with an 8-0 ending game score. We came in with much of the same players and coaches from last year, so it was great to play with the girls again and learn from our shared experience,” Sikora said.
“Knowing where we failed last year was helpful to recognize our weaknesses as a team, so we really focused on defensive plays and aggressive blocking.”
But the girls weren’t the only ones bringing energy to the field.
“(The guys) showed up with amusement park-level enthusiasm,” Sikora said.
While both teams put on stirring performances, the senior cheerleaders won crowd favorite. Everyone involved seemed to have the time of their lives.
“It was a blast! The game was great, and we acquired some pom poms to cheer with. David Thomas had some crazy pink capris,” senior Braedon Weigle said.
The cheerleading squads and football teams fed into each other’s energies.
“The senior girls were playing out of their minds with a two-point conversion on the first quarter. And the senior cheerleaders were a class act, with our spectacular half-time show of rollercoasters, lifts and pyramids, wildly outperforming the juniors,” senior Dom Puglisi said.
Despite the teams’ rivalries, this event merely served to bring the students together.
“It was such a fun time coming together as students to support one another and just have an absolute blast doing it,” senior Ben Forastiere said.
Maybe next year the juniors will pull inspiration from their defeat.
