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The day ended with the senior, junior, sophomore and freshmen classes earning a total of 150, 125, 92 and 72 points, respectively. The total scores for the week so far are 503 points for the seniors, 376 points for the juniors, 374 points for the sophomores and 341 points for the freshmen, according to official score reports from the Associated Student Body.
Unlike last year’s poolside rally, which consisted of two separate relay events, this year’s competition featured one large relay race amassed with four different tasks. A team of nine participants from each grade competed in the relay. The members of the winning senior team consisted of Paige Devine, Kimberley Hallstead, Ken Wattana, D.J. Fotsch, Anna Glaves, Sabrina Lee, Arseniy Kotov, Jack Smale and Haley Connor.
The traditional boogie board and clothes changing races made up the first three laps of the relay. During the first lap, one team member pulled another member who rode on a boogie board across the pool, while in the following two laps, a competitor put on a shirt and shorts, jumped into the pool and sprinted to the other side to pass on the clothing to the next team member. A new edition to the relay race challenged two competitors to swim a lap while carrying a ping-pong ball in a spoon. For the last lap, three team members had to swim across while holding onto one noodle.
The seniors earned 100 points for winning the relay race, while the juniors earned 75 points for second place. The sophomores and freshmen tied, gaining 37 points each.
The judges, consisting of world languages teachers, awarded the seniors 50 points for the cheers component of the rally while the junior, sophomore and freshman classes earned 40, 30 and 20 points, respectively. However, the seniors fell in last place in the “Best Dressed” category, winning only five points. The sophomore class won first place and was awarded 20 points while the junior and freshman classes won 15 and 10 points, respectively.
The juniors won the first relay, beating the sophomores in a close race. While the juniors dominated the first half of the relay, sophomore Quinn Rockwell brought his class back into the race by catching junior Skylar Dorosin while holding a ping-pong ball. In the end, the three juniors, holding their noodle, managed to touch the wall only a few seconds before the sophomores finished.
[[nid:24787]]The various instructions for the extensive relay confused many participants. However, the confusion cleared up after the race got started, according to junior Shannon Scheel.
“It was fun, but it was really confusing because it was hard for me to realize what we were suppose to do because there were so many steps,” Scheel said. “But once we caught on, it was okay.”
The seniors easily won the second relay event, finishing the race almost half a lap ahead of the freshmen.
Extra time spent on cheers prevented a conciliation round for third place, according to Spirit Commissioner George Brown. Instead, the sophomore and freshman classes tied for third place, and the conciliation round was skipped for the last championship round.
The juniors had come into the competition confident they would win the race.
“We’ve come to show that the junior class is most dominant in the water,” junior Maragret Wenzlau said before the rally.
The championship round between the seniors and juniors began with a close tie. However, the juniors lost valuable time in their transitions while struggling to put on the wet clothes, which resulted in the seniors finishing the race with a lead of almost half a lap.
While the juniors sulked, the seniors congratulated each other.
“We lost, I’m sad,” junior Laura Cui said.
“Seniors were awesome,” Devine said.
Although junior Aaron Zelinger described the loss as unfortunate, Wenzlau expressed hope for next year.
“I think we show a strong potential for next year,” Wenzlau said.
Wenzlau joked that the juniors would practice holding eggs with spoons this swimming season, as that task had consistently caused the most delay in the relay. For next year, the juniors will also have a full squad, according to Wenzlau. Two essential junior swimmers, Jasmine Tosky and Byron Sanborn, missed the event because they are currently competing in the Fédération Internationale de Natation/ARENA Swimming World Cup in Europe. Senior Sarah Liang is also competing in the World Cup.
There was a brief disruption at the beginning of the rally when someone mistakenly announced that the bleachers were only for the senior class. This led to a tense moment as the juniors, who had set up on the bleachers, refused to move. However, the situation was quickly resolved by ASB and both classes shared the bleachers for the rally.
“It was a little intense, there was animosity between the classes, including spraying silly string and throwing things at each other,” junior ASB Social Commissioner Jared Swezey Gleason said.
[[nid:24859]]Judged deducted five points each from the senior and junior classes for bad sportsmanship, while the sophomores and freshmen were awarded five points each.
Brown said that there was room for improvement in the arrangement of the classes around the pool deck because the freshman and sophomore class presidents had trouble showing their class cheer.
However, the overall feedback to the poolside rally from the different classes was generally positive.
Freshmen Sam Kelly and Willy Lee, who participated in the race, both agreed that the rally had been a fun and exciting experience, while Teacher on Special Assignment Trinity Klein noted that the cheering was especially loud.
“It’s a fun atmosphere around the pool, something different from the regular rallies on the quad,” Brown said.
Spirit Week will continue tomorrow with a lunchtime rally at the track that will include hula hoop and tug-of-war contests. The competitions in the final two days will be worth more points than ones in the first three days, according to Brown.