Immediately after senior Julia Yoskowitz witnessed the final touchdown of the Powderpuff game, which put the seniors in the lead during the last eight seconds of the game, she ran to her teammates and began to celebrate, knowing they had won. Yoskowitz participated in the annual JDS tradition of Powderpuff on Nov. 13, where junior and senior girls competed in a game of flag football coached by boys from their grades.
The game began at around 4:10 p.m. after each team warmed up and huddled to discuss plans for the first play. The game started with the juniors’ possession of the ball, decided by a coin toss between senior Maiya Blumenthal and junior Eve Sharp.
The juniors quickly gained a lead of 19-0 after around ten minutes. Sharp, a running back for the juniors, felt that the team’s collaboration and ability to communicate made them successful in the beginning of the game.
Despite their strong start, Sharp, along with junior and head coach Micah Brickman, felt that as the team faced challenges throughout the game, including the loss of their center, Molly Rose Cloutier, midway through, they progressively lost momentum.
“I was too cocky in the beginning of the game, and didn’t really plan for that scenario,” Brickman said. “We kind of had to, just at the last minute, adjust our roster, and that probably messed things up a little bit.”
As opposed to that, Yoskowitz felt that as the game progressed, the seniors gained more motivation to beat the juniors, which led to their success towards the end.
“We started to understand some more of the plays that the juniors were doing, so we could set up a little bit better, especially on defense,” Yoskowitz said. “And then we were able to communicate a little bit better in the second half of the game.”
While Yoskowitz felt that the seniors deserved their victory, as she thought they played well, she also believed that at times the referees’ decisions were not very accurate.
“There’s always going to be controversial calls during games like this, because we’re all super, super competitive, but it made [winning] worth it,” Yoskowitz said
Nonetheless, during the seniors’ final possession, the score was 32-29 with the juniors in the lead. With eight seconds left, senior Ellie Strisik scored the final touchdown, making the score 35-32 and putting the seniors in the lead for the last few seconds of the game.
Even though the class of 2027 fell to the seniors this year, Sharp hopes to have a strong comeback in her senior year and get to practice and play with her grade again.
“I definitely plan on playing again next year, and I’m very excited to beat the current sophomores,” Sharp said. “I think it was just such a fun experience. I loved how it kind of brought our grade together.”
