It was a Wednesday night during the Homecoming power puff game, and McCracken Field’s lights shined down on the East and West Campus seniors. At around the third quarter, Madison Loewe fell to the ground as a girl on the opposing team fell on her and her leg. As this happened, Loewe’s teammate Kylee O’Brien, was pushed to the ground for the second time in the game—and, this time, another player stepped on her toe, breaking it. 

Many players thought that the powder puff game for the seniors was pretty brutal. There were injuries sustained on both sides, but mostly on the West team, who felt that the rules in the game were not enforced very well.

Several players, including seniors Loewe and O’Brien, received bad injuries due to the aggressive game. “The girls’ mentality is ‘As long as you don’t get called out for it then you’re fine,’” Loewe said. “So, it’s a lot of pushing, shoving, running people into the ground, a lot of that.”

Although West players felt that the East team was fairly rough on them, some are not surprised as to why. “I think we were very cocky, I’m speaking on behalf of the West team,” O’Brien said. “We won last year, and so we were very excited about that, and we obviously had that going into it. I think the East realized that we were just kind of going off of the [win] we had last year, so they knew they had to bring something else to the table to intimidate us. I mean, it worked. We were very thrown off our game the first time someone was pushed.” 

Although West saw East as too aggressive, members of the East senior team disagree, including Lily Downing. “Our plan wasn’t to play rough,” she said. “West was hurting some of our girls, and so we played rough too.”

Though fewer injuries were reported on East’s side, at least one East defensive player was given a bloody nose. Other reports included scratches, punching, choking, and tripping. “I think both teams played equally as rough,” Downing said. “Yes, we played rougher than we did last year, and that’s because we didn’t case as much as we did this year.”

Another reason West players felt that the game was harsh had to do with the enforcement of the rules by the refs. “Because they are real refs, [and] it’s not a real football game, they’re a little more relaxed about it,” Loewe said. “They pretty much say where the football goes, and I appreciate them. The only thing you get called out for is swearing, or if a girl fell too hard … I think that yeah, rules should be a little more enforced or like certain football rules.”

Even though many people have the opinion that East was too aggressive, and few even felt their win was unfair, it is clear that this powder puff game will be remembered by many. We can see that school spirit is strong in our student body, even if it’s expressed by a broken toe.

Additional reporting by Stacy Correra