Students wearing togas, flower leis, cowboy hats, and athletic gear cheered on their classes during the second Spirit Week rally on the Paly quad today at lunch.

Today, the students in each class dressed up as different types of salad dressing. The seniors were Caesar dressing, and wore bed sheet togas to school. The salad dressing for the junior class was Thousand Island, so the class of 2010 wore Hawaiian grass skirts, leis, and shell necklaces. The sophomores were Ranch dressing and dressed up as cowboys and cowgirls. The freshmen dressed up as athletes in accordance with their theme of Healthy Choice dressing.

The competition of the day was the cot race, for which each class selected two girls and four boys to compete. The boys first attempted to dress one girl in an array of gear, including a neon-orange vest and suspenders. Then, the boys carried the girl to the other side of the race on a cot. At the other end of the field, the first girl took off the gear and the second put the gear on. The four boys then carried the second girl back across the field in the cot.

In the preliminary races, the sophomores raced against the juniors while the seniors went up against the freshmen. In the race between the juniors and sophomores, the juniors were the clear winners. The juniors dressed both girls with ease while the sophomores struggled with the gear. The sophomores had barely gotten to the other end of the field when the juniors crossed the finish line. The seniors sped across the finish line as well to grab a win over the freshmen in their preliminary race.

The sophomores and juniors jumped the trigger in the consolation race, and started dressing their girls before junior Associated Student Body (ASB) Spirit Commissioner Olivia Diamond had said “go.” The race restarted, and the sophomores were disqualified for failing to put the vest on one of the girls. The freshmen placed third in the cot race and scored 50 points, even though they crossed the finish line after the sophomore team. The sophomores did not receive any points due to disqualification.

“The sophomores…need to step it up,” Diamond said. “It’s their second year; they should know what’s going on.”

The race between the seniors and juniors was controversial. Neither class wore the required suspenders in the second half of the race: the seniors did not put the suspenders on the girl, and the juniors claimed that their suspender clips would not open. Eventually, ASB decided to redo the race without using suspenders. The seniors beat the juniors in a close race, and received 100 points for first place. The junior class received 75 points for placing second.

“I think the juniors need to step it up,” Diamond said. “The seniors are showing better spirit than in past years.”

The lunchtime competition ended with the freshmen against the seniors in a cheer-off to decide who would receive 25 points for being “Best Dressed.” The freshmen claimed the prize for the second day in a row when the juniors started to cheer for them.

The seniors won the “Best Cheer” competition, and claimed another 50 points. However, ASB deducted five points because the seniors’ “Freshmen Friday” cheer was deemed inappropriate by the judges at the rally.

The freshmen also had five points deducted for including profanity in one of their cheers. Although the freshmen class intended to leave a blank in place of the word in their cheer, some students shouted out the profanity anyway.

Point Totals:

Freshmen: 195