Homecoming: students get their game on

This year, the Homecoming festivities took an electronic turn with each class championing a childhood video game: Club Penguin for freshmen, Pac-Man for sophomores, Pokemon for juniors and Super Mario for seniors.

 Seniors secured first place with 3,360 points, juniors took second with 3,050 points, sophomores took third with 2,553 points and the freshmen finished last with 2,334 points. 

The freshmen kicked off the Quad Day festivities with their Club Penguin-themed skit on Oct. 1. 

“We decided on an ‘Around the World’ theme early on after getting our theme,” freshman class secretary Spring Ma said. “We thought it was a good way to tie together the theme to the Quad Day without totally over-killing it with Club Penguin.”

As usual, freshmen had a hard time figuring out how to do their decorations and Quad Day performance, but they had strong dancers and learned a lot to ready for future years.

On Oct. 2, the sophomores impressed with their skit and well-choreographed dances. 

“Throughout the show, all the dances had a ton of energy and the backstage support was unbelievably amazing,” sophomore class vice president Anant Rajeev said. “What really got us going on stage was hearing all the support. In the end, we as a class really came together to make some magic.”

Sophomore Sabrina Clark saw that the dedication the sophomores put into their Quad Day yielded a positive outcome, 

“Our Quad Day was better than we expected, nobody had seen everything together until that morning and it showed how much work we all put into it,” Clark said. “We have very detailed pieces but lacked excessive decorations to fill the hallway, which is just something to think about for next year.”

Although the juniors received Pokemon as their theme, which was one of the more wanted themes, their preparations came with obstacles. 

Junior class treasurer Josh Pi said the main issues were finding time to meet for rehearsals and managing the large number of participants. 

“I think just having everyone working together to make the dances and decorations look good was the coolest part,” he said. “I got to talk to a lot of people in my grade I wouldn't usually talk to and it was really awesome to see everyone helping each other out.”

The seniors rounded out the Quad Days on Oct. 4 with a Mario-inspired theme. They were impressive in both the quality of their dances and skit and in their sheer number of participants.

“I thought we did really well with both decorations and Quad Day,” said senior Bronwen Bowen, who played the main part of Princess Peach, the love interest of Mario and Toad. “I was really nervous for both, but in the end I thought we pulled it off really well. I'm so proud of our class, we've come so far together.” 

After the week’s performances, students gathered in the gym for the Homecoming dance on Oct. 5. The dance, attended by more than 200 students, featured classic arcade games in the gym such as Street Fighter and Pac-Man. 

“We actually had a pretty good turnout for the dance,” dance commissioner senior Katie Truong said. “The games were really cool and an interesting part of the night.”