Sports ball: Even Year takes the Hallo-win

The annual Halloween sports ball game was played by a courageous team of young Even Year freshmen against the Odd Year sophomores. The match took place in DeVos Fieldhouse after being thoroughly decorated by junior and senior alumni, who haunted the corriders as the underclassmen played. The Even Year freshmen managed to escape DeVos with a win, bravely wrestling and shooting goals to find their way to Odd Year’s paint, where they successfully shot and scored 22 points before Odd Year could get 21 points in their own wellsecured home base. In anticipation of Halloween this year, the typical structure of the sports ball game differed in that the junior and senior alumni were allowed to haunt the course. The ambiguous rules on scaring the underclassmen players during the match led to some serious frights on both sides. “A junior dressed as a ghoul grabbed me from behind as we were running to putt a shot; I screamed so loudly our catcher couldn’t throw the ball to make the score,” one Odd Year sophomore commented. Even Year’s win came with casualities of its own.

Their gaurdian of the goal took a few painful blows to the head before the night was through. “I knew I had to push through, my team was depending on me. I couldn’t let odd year get any more baskets in the hole or capture our flag.” The win for Even Year has broken Odd Year’s five year win streak. Opinions differ widely on how Even Year managed to do it after so many years of loss. “I think it was the haunting that did it. The Even Year coaches must have really put pressure on the freshmen to win. Maybe they were more scared of losing and what would happen if they let down their coaches than of playing the game through the haunting,” said one judge. Another aspect of the judging came in stylistic points for the even and Odd Year players.

Each side had a Halloween theme they dressed to, with Even Year as vampires with the slogan “2-2 is coming for you!” Odd Year wore a wide range of ghost costumes, chanting “2-1, you better run.” Ultimately the night ended well for both teams as they then invited Hope College students to walk through the maze-like course that the match was held in. The underclassmen were then able to haunt the course themselves in preparation for the years to come as alumni. Several Hope students had to leave “haunted DeVos” through emergency exits, scared off by the sports ball players’ antics. “That was the most terrifying experience of my life,” an anonymous student commented, earlier seen running out of a side door of DeVos screaming. “I thought I could make it through, but there were just so many ghosts! And then, when I thought I made it through, I realized a vampire was stalking me down a hallway and was about to attack.” In the haunting after the sports ball game, Hope students who survived were given Halloween treats and Hope cookies.

Come next year to see if you can make it through!