This year’s annual Powder Puff game came with many twists and turns. Rumors of cheating, a prepared junior team versus an underprepared senior team and a surprising win from the seniors helped make a fun way to end the year and introduce the football team for next year.

Powder Puff Football is an end of year tradition where the senior girls play flag football against the junior girls, coached by the football team. Senior Powder Puff player, Cate Cloran, gives insight on the ins and outs of the game this year.

“I decided to play in the Powder Puff game because I knew I could get my friends to join me, and it felt like a fun way to wrap up my senior year,” Cloran said.

Most of the seniors joined just to have fun, without expecting to actually win. Meanwhile, the juniors took the game very seriously. They had over seven practices, had assigned positions and even wrote plays on their arms.

“The senior football players weren’t very invested in the planning of practices and the game, which is probably why we never had any practices over the week,” Cloran said. “However, the guys really locked in before the game started and I think that definitely contributed to our win.”

Compared to the juniors, the seniors hadn’t had a single practice before the day of the game. Their first practice took place 30 minutes before kickoff.

“Since we didn’t have a single practice, I thought we were going to get destroyed by the juniors. But we ended up really pulling through in the end,” Cloran said.

The senior girls ended up beating the junior girls 21-7, winning by two touchdowns. However, because of the seniors lack of practice, this win came with some controversy.

“I had no idea about the baby oil beforehand,” Cloran said. “Someone handed me a greasy belt and I had no choice but to wear it.”

Baby oil was used to make the senior players’ belts harder to grab off. Though most of the players were unaware that cheating was going on, some say that the seniors unfairly won because of this advantage.

“I feel like the baby oil didn’t have a huge impact on the game at all. We won by two touchdowns, so they should have done more while we were on offense,” Cloran said. “The baby oil had nothing to do with our win.”

Despite the cheating drama, the game was still a lighthearted and fun way to close out the year, especially as a way to honor the graduating seniors and juniors soon to be incoming seniors.

“I really enjoyed hanging out with all the senior girls I hadn’t seen in a while,” Cloran said. “It was fun having everyone together in the same place one last time.”