On October 3rd, Totino-Grace held the annual Powder Puff football game, a football game between the junior and senior girls. 

This game is usually not close and the seniors usually win. “I have no idea when the last time the Juniors won the PowderPuff game was.  It may be the first time” said lead organizer Andrew Million. 

The game had lots of ups and downs the whole time with both teams going back and forth scoring. “We knew it would be a close one ,but we also knew that we could compete and beat the seniors,” said Nick Ruohonen.

The junior team was led by Emilie Ling. “The Juniors had a little bit better game plan: get the ball to Emilie Ling,” said Million. Ling scored all the junior’s touchdowns except for one and played both offense and defense. 

“We couldn’t figure out a way to stop her. We tried to make changes at halftime and yet we still couldn’t stop her,” said defensive coach Arya Chandrashekar. 

There are many seniors claiming that the game was rigged and that the juniors cheated. Nick Ruohonen said, “when you lose a game and you’re supposed to win usually the first thing you do is make excuses.”

Million commented, “I have no reason to rig the game. Whatever team plays best is the team that’s gonna end up winning the game” 

The juniors focused on practicing to get better and came together as a team to help them win the game. “We had 3 team practices before the game which I believe helped our team out more than we will ever know,” Ruohonen said. The seniors only held one practice. 

Practice makes perfect. The work that the juniors put in showed up big on game day. The juniors came out looking more organized and seeming to know what they were doing more than the seniors did. 

Both teams came out with very run-heavy offenses. With little passing, the juniors’ defense did a much better job preparing for the run. “The juniors did a much better job defending the run you could tell they had a good game plan going into it,” Millon stated. 

The senior class didn’t even know how to react to this upset victory. The seniors always win and it’s something that the seniors brags about to the juniors. “It’s a very bitter feeling. I wasn’t even thinking about a chance of us losing going into the game,” Chandrashekar said when asked about the results of the game. 

The juniors now have the opportunity to be one of the first teams in Totino-Grace history to win the powder puff game as juniors and as seniors. The odds are in their favor but next year’s juniors will be wanting to ruin their dreams of winning two years in a row.