Seniors Make the Right Moves, Convincingly Win Mission Week Board Game
The game pieces for each class pose together for a photo before the Board Game begins on March 10, 2023. (Left to right) John Tancona, Tate Scanlon, Drew Mozena, Gray King and Nico Rodriguez Martinez
March 2, 2023
During a week when Rockhurst really emphasizes the “Men for Others” mantra, one of the highlights is often a board game. But this isn’t just any board game. It features life-sized game pieces as well as multiple competitions within the game to determine who wins the overall competition.
Mission Week is a week where students come together to raise money for various charitable causes. Each class chooses an organization, then all proceeds raised during the week go to their chosen group. The goal is to help Rockhurst students become their best selves by providing financial aid to these charities while also building connections with different communities. At the end of the week, in front of the entire school, a board game is played where each grade level competes against each other in various games.
The rules of the board game are as follows: A giant die is rolled to determine the amount of points each game is worth. A student (or students) from each grade is dressed up as a game piece and are used to represent the scores. The freshman game piece was Gray King, who dressed as the marshmallow man. Drew Mozena, dressed as Andy Reid represented the sophomores. The junior piece was Nico Rodriguez Martinez, who was dressed as Christiano Ronaldo. The seniors chose two game pieces: Tate Scanlon as Rick and John Tancona as Morty from the animated television show “Rick and Morty”. The game piece for the class that wins each game moves forward however many places that the game is worth (as deemed by the roll of the giant die).
The seniors started in the lead, because they had raised the most money for Mission Week, followed by the sophomores, freshmen and juniors, respectively, in that order.
The first board game contest was Wii boxing, worth two points. Seniors squared off against the freshmen in the first match. It ended in a senior knockout in the second round. The sophomore and junior match was a back and forth battle that consisted of many knockdowns. The match went all three rounds where the sophomores won by decision. In the final, the sophomore, Charlie Loose, quickly knocked out the seniors in the first round, earning his class the win and two points on the game board.
“I was in it last year and lost, so I had to get my get back,” Loose said.
The next game, worth three points, was baseball trivia. The seniors easily won, with Maddux Radosevic getting every question right. The juniors got second place, but only answered one question right.
The third game was an eating contest worth five points. Each contestant received a plate full of Jello, and they had to finish it as fast as possible. Senior Logan Bayhylle finished first, followed closely by freshman Logan Hawley. The juniors and sophomores were disqualified for not being able to finish.
The fourth game was JUG numbers contest worth two points. Each grade sent down one of their most JUGed students to perform the task that’s a staple of a JUG. In the monotonous assignment, the students were given a number they had to reach. In order to do so, the students started at zero, added two, then subtracted one (0+2-1). They continued with that same process until they reached the target number. (The game can also work in reverse: Start at a target number, then subtract two and add one until you get to zero.)
Senior George Scheiderer ended up dominating, leaving the other grades no time to finish.
“I racked up the JUGs, and I was the go-to pick for it” Scheiderer said.
Scheiderer has participated in the JUG numbers portion of the board game every year he has been at Rockhurst, and this was his first time winning.
The fifth game was sumo wrestling. A student from each grade got inside a sumo suit and tried to push their opponent out of a circle. The senior quickly took care of business against the freshman by knocking him out of the circle in a matter of seconds. However, the junior and sophomore battled for a long time. Sophomore Lincoln Bunch managed to snag a comeback victory and advance. In the final, senior London Lewis managed to get Bunch on the ground before jumping on top of him for a pin, winning the seniors one point.
The next event was a haircut competition worth six points. One student from each class had three minutes to give a classmate a haircut. Afterwards, Dean Matt Darby rated each haircut out of ten. Seniors Hayden Spachman and Tate Slaymaker won, with Slaymaker receiving a somewhat ragged buzz cut on top while keeping long hair in back.
“I was trying to give him the Drake lover boy haircut, but he had too much hair on the back,” Spachman said.
The next game was spikeball. Two pairs of students from each grade competed against each other. In spikeball, the first serve must be hit off a net that looks something like a fitness trampoline directly to a student from the other team. After that, each team can only hit the ball in the air three times before it must be hit back onto the net. The ball can never touch the ground. The seniors and juniors met in the final, where the seniors rolled, winning 7-2 and earning four points (or moves on the game board) for their class.
The eighth game was dodgeball. Each grade dispatched a team of five players. The seniors barely beat the freshmen, and the sophomores eliminated all five juniors without one sophomore getting knocked out. The final match came down to a one-on-one, and the seniors ended up coming out on top.
The final game was tug of war. Each grade could send however many people they wanted…as long as their collective weight didn’t exceed 1200 pounds. The seniors’ strategy differed from the other grades in that they used multiple small but strong guys. The other grades simply used their strongest and biggest people. The seniors easily defeated the freshmen in the first match. The juniors and the sophomores battled for a while. In the end, the juniors narrowly won. The length of their first match appeared to exhaust the juniors, which likely factored into how easily the seniors beat them in the final. That victory ensured the seniors the overall victory in the board game.
Final results: Seniors took first place, sophomores second, freshmen third and juniors finished in fourth. The Board Game served as a strong ending to Mission Week, illustrating the competitive spirit of the students as well as the school’s collective effort towards a greater good.
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