The epitome of school spirit congregates at the 29th annual homecoming game, where alumni, students and parents celebrate the Eagles football team with various traditions and festivities, Oct. 25. After a week filled with pageants, dances and dress up days the suspense was leading up to the football game, beginning at 7 p.m. and the crowing of the homecoming court.
The night featured the princess candidates during pre-game festivities of the varsity game. King and queen nominees were then introduced throughout halftime, followed immediately by the crowning ceremony. The float presentations took place during third quarter of the football game, but the results were not announced until fourth quarter.
Due to the many festivities throughout the homecoming game, The Feather staff has split this article into three segments to cover the homecoming court, the game and the floats.
Homecoming court honored, crowned at halftime
After a week of preparation, the homecoming court nominees arrived on the north field eager to find out the results of the pageants. The girls were decked out in formal dresses, taking endless pictures to capture the moments of the night. The king candidates, though some were wearing football pads as they played in the game, came dressed in their finest. Everyone was counting down the minutes until halftime, when the results would become reality.
The princess candidates were introduced during the pre-game activities, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Following the first half of the varsity football game, all the nominees were welcomed onto the center of the field. There, the queens and kings were given formal introductions before the crowning ceremony.
Last year’s homecoming king, Matthew Jenkins, and queen, Jenna Orcutt, returned to campus in order to crown this year’s royalty. The results were announced as follows:
Freshman princess: Sydney Belmont
Sophomore princess: Alli Breedlove
Junior princess: Elise Winegarden
Senior princess: Annalise Rosik
King: Kyle Hudecek
Queen: Hannah Avila
As sophomore princess, Alli Breedlove recounts all the fun that being nominated allowed her to experience. Alongside the princess pageant, the night itself was a great experience for her, she said.
“It was fun and nerve racking, but overall a good time,” Breedlove said. “Just being at the game with all my family and friends was the best. I think I got to bond with the other princesses. Plus I had a lot of fun at the pageant.”
After crowning all the princesses, senior Kyle Hudecek was crowned as homecoming king. Along with being grateful for winning, he was also thankful for the experience homecoming gave him as a whole.
“Homecoming was great because of the friendships I made with all of the other king candidates,” Hudecek said. “Because of the hard work we were pouring into the dance it helped us connect with one another and have a great time. Personally I enjoyed the teamwork we accomplished throughout homecoming because of that teamwork we were able to have a laugh and have an amazing dance. It was a great honor to be crowned king and I’m just really grateful for the experience.”
Immediately after, senior Hannah Avila was crowned as homecoming queen. The announcement brought many tears and smiles as she accepted her crown from Orcutt. The night seemed like a night out of a book for Avila, it could not have gone any better.
“Oh my goodness the night was a dream,” Avila said. “The night was fantastic. I felt so blessed and honored and just overjoyed with being crowned queen. Immediately after I got crowned tears were streaming down my face, and I was just so happy. I loved being able to share that moment with my dad. It was hands down definitely one of the best nights of my life.”
Classes depict theme through superhero floats
After a month of preparation and building, with lots of paint, cardboard and glitter, the classes finally got to show off their hard work on the night of homecoming.
The senior class took first place for the second year in a row, with their Batman themed float. Following them the freshmen and sophomores took second place with the freshmen portraying Power Rangers and the sophomores displaying The Incredibles. The juniors received last place with their Avengers float.
Senior Robbie Hill played a role on the float for the first time. Hill was excited about his part on the float and found the experience one of enjoyment.
“I thought the seniors did an amazing job on our float this year,” Hill said. “The details we put on things like the Bat-cave and the Batmobile were really well done and spot on. I got to be on our float this year for the first time and it was a blast. Our fight scenes were so uncoordinated, but it was such a blast. We definitely ended our last homecoming with a bang.”
The first homecoming experience is usually one of great excitement. For freshmen Summer McGrew this proved to be true. Along with helping build the float she also took part on the scene put on for the judges.
“My first homecoming was really great,” McGrew said. “It was a lot of work to build the float but it was worth it in the end. I had a great time being on the float and I can’t wait for the years to come.”
Eagles defeat Ambassadors 56-6
The Eagles defeated Riverdale Christian for the second time during the homecoming football game, Oct. 25. The Eagles defeated the Ambassadors by 50 points with the final score being 56-6. Many players stood out during the game and helped the Eagles obtain their victory
As told by the stats on Maxpreps, senior, Bobby Christopher was one of those players. He had the leading rushing yards that game with a total of 134 yards. Christopher was pumped for the game and wanted to play hard for his team.
“It felt good to win the homecoming game,” Christopher said.”There were a lot of fans in the stands watching and we didn’t want to disappoint them. The game was exciting and I got a couple of long runs so that was pretty cool. One of the things that got me pumped was going up against one of the players that I got in a fight with the last time we played them, so was exciting.
The offense for the team was lead by Hunter Bachman, a homeschooler who lead the team with four touchdowns. Quarterback, Tyler Breedlove, ’16, thought Bachman really pushed the team to their win and helped them on offense.
Breedlove enjoyed the night and was glad the team won. His favorite part was throwing a touch down pass and seeing his sister, Alli Breedlove, crowned that evening for junior princess. Breedlove recognized some aspects of the teams line up that needed some working on and addressed them.
“We did really well on offense but we need help with defense,” Breedlove said. “Our running backs did really good that night and caught some nice passes. The defense needs some work getting more tackles and not let them get pass us, but overall both offense and defense did really good.”
Chris Kollenkark, ’15, held the most tackles during the game with eight tackles. The team had a total of 36 tackles and held the line against the Ambassadors. Kollenkark enjoyed the game and is ready for the next game against Northwest Christian, Nov. 1.
“I thought we played extremely well,” Kollenkark said. “The game was exciting and I thought the team communicated very well throughout the game. I’m looking forward to our upcoming games and hopefully they are as successful as this past one.”
For more features, read the Oct. 25 article, Homecoming rally prepares for night’s event.
