Seniors score success in powderpuff

Powderpuff heated up the competition between classes once again as the week of Spring Fling began on March 28. Students hurried to the football field during lunch in order to catch all the action of girls playing football against each other. Though seemingly harmless games of flag football, the competition lived up to its famed intensive nature.

The plays got rough as girls did all they could in their power to win, even if it meant knocking down other girls to the ground. At the end of the day, many girls walked off the field with bruises, scratches and slight injuries.

“It gets really competitive and can lead to some rough play,” junior Megan Benzing said. “When the competitive spirit rises, some girls can get a little out of control. Someone even clawed my face.”

The end results were no different than the expected; the seniors won first, the juniors second, the sophomores third and the freshmen last. Placing first also marked the second year in a row of victory for the the class of 2011 in the annual powderpuff football matches.

“I thought the team played really hard because we wanted a back-to-back victory,” senior Lauren Mather said. “We had a lot of injured players who were dying to play through their injury to make sure we won, so we really fought to win for them.”

The seniors’ path to first place began by a touchdown scored by senior quarterback Mckenzi Crase near the end of the match against the sophomores, winning the game 1-0 for the seniors. They later went on to play the juniors in a nighttime match in which neither team scored a touchdown. The match was made more difficult for the seniors, who lost Crase after the first play in the match due to injuries. However, the match went to the seniors by default because they had more yard gains.

“It was awesome because it was a tough game and we were missing our quarterback which was a huge setback,” senior Mary Edman said. “We went in giving it our all, and we are all really happy about the results.”

Although they came close to claiming first place, the juniors were content with their placing and performance this year.

“I think that we did really well considering that we were rained out of practicing a lot,” junior Megan Benzing said. “We held our own against the seniors who won their junior year so that was great.”

In past years, the juniors haven’t had enough girls come out to play for the team to even have substitutes. However, tons of people showed up this year to bolster the junior forces, Benzing said.

“We were communicating well to get practice organized on the nights before both of our games,” said Benzing. “We also had a lot of great offensive plays. That way, we always had something new to run.”

The juniors’ run began with a match against the freshmen which resulted in a 3-1 touchdown victory for the juniors. Junior Kari Clark scored two touchdowns while junior Sneha Shivkumar and freshmen Lindsay Webster each scored one touchdown during the match. They later lost to the seniors in the nighttime match.

The sophomores were pleased with their performance this year as well. Sophomore Evelyn Lee was especially proud of her class.

“We improved so much from last year and our team put in a lot of effort to represent the sophomores,” Lee said. It was exciting to see the number of girls that wanted to be a part of it, and I was glad their spirit and dedication paid off in the end.”

Although the sophomores lost a hard-fought match against the seniors, the sophomores defeated the freshmen in the consolation game by default by having more yard gains.

“I think we were a lot more organized and we worked harder to make sure we could put up a good fight against the seniors and freshmen,” Lee said. “Our strong defense was the main reason we were able to contain the seniors to just one touchdown.”

Despite losing both of their matches, the freshmen were not discouraged by their results. However, the a lack of playing time for some players made some less than content.

“I think we did well overall considering it wasn’t really organized very well,” freshmen Katie Truong said. “I felt like a lot of us didn’t get to play that much.”

The young team had a lot of ambition and fun despite their setbacks in organization and experience.

“It was fun going to the practices and learning new football skills,” Truong said. “The upperclassmen were intimidating, but we wanted to beat them and win.”