Playing to Win: Sophomore Stuco hosted a flag football tournament for their class on Sunday, April 28

The Sophomore StuCo flag football tournament took place on April 28 — raising money to create connections within the sophomore class. The tournament cost $10 and all the proceeds went to the winning team.

The winning team, “Team 1,” raised $80 and consisted of sophomores Eric Schlote, Jack Reeves, Mete Ozkan, Linus Mai and Vince Kopp.

The flag football tournament was a single-elimination game that had a turnout of around 55 students and eight teams, according to sophomore StuCo representative and member of the school flag football league Georgia Boyd. Around 55 students and eight teams attended.

The school flag football league was started this year and is available to any students who are interested in joining. On their Instagram, there’s a Google form that has any student fill out who will be on their team for the next upcoming tournament, and they occur once every few weeks. The flag football league and the sophomore StuCo class worked in tandem to make this event happen.

Every year, the current sophomore StuCo members host a fun event for their grade. Last school year the event was a movie night that didn’t have the fun characteristics a sports tournament has, like appeal to boys and girls as well as prizes, according to sophomore current StuCo secretary Claire Polanco.

To determine this year’s event the sophomore StuCo representatives polled followers on the sme2026stuco Instagram account to see what students would like to do as the activity. The football tournament idea had the most votes out of the other options students suggested. Since the Flag Football League already had supplies like footballs and flag belts, Boyd felt the tournament would be a chance for the league and StuCo to work together.

“We all got together and tried to find a date that would work and publicized it on both of our social media accounts and tried to get everyone to go,” Boyd said.

The eight participating teams were required to have four to five people per team and each team was encouraged to coordinate outfits for team identifiability. 

In Team 1’s first game against the Manly Men, they won with a score of 4-0, according to Ozkan. Reeves scored a total of four touchdowns throughout the tournament, as well as Ozkan getting two pick-sixes. In the final game they played against team Gage, and they defeated them 4-1, winning the tournament.

Many of the students who participated, including Polanco and Reeves, enjoyed the tournament and would love to be able to do another sports tournament in the future. If StuCo has another tournament in the future some of the students who participated this year hope that more students would join to elevate the social aspect of it.

“I would probably try to get more teams if that’s possible, and advertise it more. And make the price [to get in] a little bit bigger to add more money,” Reeves said.

Sports tournaments have great appeal to students as an event to be competitive and have lots of fun with peers, according to Boyd.

“We made some plays and it was really interesting to try and have it play [out] like an actual football game,” Polanco said. “Make plays and how the quarterback you’re already back and things like that. It didn’t all work out the way that we wanted, but it was fun to be able to play”.