8 sports
May 29, 2007
❁
the Eye
POWDER PUFF GETS ROUGH
Girls prove just as tough as boys in this years tournament
by Denise Hotta-Moung Dressed in hot pink, purple, green and orange shirts, pretty ribbons wrapped around their ponytails, the high school girls entered the field ready for a friendly game of football on May 18. The match soon turned ugly as the girls, angered by what they thought were bad calls and foul play, began yelling obscenities at each other. “The language used was awful,” junior Lena Byrne said. “It was hard to tell who was kidding and who wasn’t.” Senior captain Sara DeNoma acknowledged the viciousness during the game at times, but noted that not everyone was involved. “A lot of people already had grudges and issues against each other,” DeNoma said. “This was kind of their opportunity to clobber the people they hated. Then other people saw this happening, and became part of it. It was like a domino effect.” “[The senior-junior game] was seriously like WWIII,” junior Esha Parikh said. The senior girls played the freshmen team while the juniors battled the sophomores. The winning
teams of those games were to meet in the championship game. The seniors, guided by coaches seniors Adam Anderson and Adam Schwarz, won 12-6 against the freshmen, who were coached by Max Shaulis and Jake Anderson. On the back field, the juniors, lead by coaches David Small, Barron Witherspoon, Alex Ettlin and Josh Smith, prevailed with a 12-6 victory over the sophomores, coached by Adrian Bautista and Ian Gillis. “We did better than I thought we would,”
it was really rough out there.” The juniors and seniors set up the championship game. Just before halftime, junior Alex Shaulis scored a touchdown, putting her team ahead. The seniors leveled the score in the second half with a touchdown scored by Aubrey Doyle. They then took the lead after being awarded two points for senior Tina Starkey’s touch on Shaulis in the junior safety zone. D o y l e widened the gap w i t h another touchdown, making the score 14-6. Shaulis scored her second touchdown to move her team closer to the seniors’ 14 points. However,
sophomore Vanessa Peck said. “The best part was getting the experience and it was a lot of fun. The worst part was how
the juniors were unable to add to their 12 points, and the seniors were declared Powderpuff champions with a 14-12 victory. Senior Keri Dixon said that there were positive and negative aspects of how competitive the game got. “It was good that people took it somewhat seriously. It was a good competitive game,” Dixon said. “But at the same time, it was also bad that it got that competitive because it got out of hand.” Despite the intensity of the game, most of the girls managed to have fun on the field. “There were a bunch of us in the front line and we’d all be laughing about it,” Parikh said. “It was probably just a handful of people that were actually being serious,” junior Calli Scheidt said. Scheidt said that while the game got really competitive, she hopes to play again next year. “They might have to have a teacher supervisor,” she said. “There was no authority figure who had no bias.”
Annual Decathlon seeks best male and female athletes by Alex Boothe The decathlon returned last week for its third year to test SAS’s students and determine the top male and female athletes. Last year’s top two were Megan Anderson and Adam Anderson, no relation. While Megan decided to take a break this year from the competition, Adam came back with the hopes of defending his title and winning it for the third straight year. “I guess you could say I’m the only male champion in decathlon history so far,” Anderson said. “It would be wrong if I didn’t win.” The Decathlon is a spread out over the course of three days testing students’ as well as teachers’ skills in a range of sports from swimming to badminton. Each team can have up to five team members with each ideally specializing in a different sport. For the teacher teams with 214 points Nasal Intrusion took first with Susan Carter, Lynda Scott, Chad Brekke, Peter Cuthbert and Steve Betts. For the students the Spartans took the win with a final score of 293. The team members for the Spartans were, Barron
Witherspoon, Tina Starkey, Nora Hanagan, Alex Finch, and Brian Maissen. Both Witherspoon and Finch made also it into the top five for young male individual scoring, and Nora Hanagan won first place for the young females. Kim Criens and Lynda Scott had the top scores for male and female teacher. Senior Mitch Samson took first place for young males this year with a total of 95 points, only three more than Anderson who took fifth place this year. Samson said he found the running events particularly hard because he’s slow, and also found rock climbing a challenge because of a thumb injury. “I just had a few good days,” Samson said. “I didn’t do amazing at anything, I just got enough points in each even to stay ahead.” Decathlon coordinator Eric Burnett believes it’s a good way for students, both male and female, to get together and work on challenges together, especially in sports that they are unfamiliar with. Burnett said he likes the idea of traditional athletes who normally play sports like baseball or football coming
out and playing sports that are devalued at SAS, like racquetball or badminton, to understand the skill that is involved. He believes it would ultimately translate into more respect for those athletes who play the more non-traditional sports. Weaknesses in this year’s decathlon were seen in both the golf competition and the obstacle course. Burnett found the obstacle course especially frustrating because individual scores were dependent on how your partner performed rather than solely how you did yourself. Even with minor problems overall this year’s decathlon was seen as a success. “It was by far the best ever,” Burnett said. “I think it’s now legit, because we have our best athletes out there competing.” Although Anderson didn’t win as he had expected, he exhibited great sportsmanship. “All in all, the Decathlon is an event that gives students the opportunity to come together and compete on a fun yet competitive level,” Anderson said, “It’s a great way to end the school year.”
Decathlon Results
Students:
Team Scores 1. Spartans- 293 points 2. Adams and Eves- 256 points 3. Pwnage- 253 points Individual Rankings Boys: Mitch Samson Alex Finch Adam Frogley Barron Witherspoon Adam Anderson Colin Lee
Girls: Nora Hanagan Erica Padgett Tina Starkey Calli Scheidt Sam Tierney Amber jack
Teachers:
Team Scores 1. Nasal intrusion- 214 points 2. Pastel Cubed- 204 points 3. Melba Toast- 201 points Individual Rankings Men: Kim Creins Peter Cuthbert Mark Forgeron Eric Burnett Greg Reynen Steve Betts
Women: Lynda Scott Susan Carter Pele Young Audrey Forgeron Stacey Jensen Julie Hoss