With a score of 12-6, the sophomore and senior PowderPuff football team won once again, since claiming their second victory in a row.

As a part of the long standing tradition at Manhattan High, the two teams — female students divided up by sophomore-senior team (pink) and freshmen-junior team (blue) — compete in a 40-minute football game, with one goal in mind: beating the opposing team. 

Senior running back and kicker Jordan Stegeman scored both touchdowns for the pink team, while junior quarterback Taylor Claussen scored the one touchdown for the blue team.

“I was just so excited,” Stegeman said. “The last time I played in PowderPuff was sophomore year, so it was just a really big accomplishment to like score both of those touchdowns and just make an impact for my team.”

The coaches on the pink team included math teachers Dedra Braxmeyer, Laura Sapp and Dayton Crist and also included help from experienced football players, such as junior Owen Braxmeyer and sophomore Noah Shotts. For the blue team, the coaches were Seth Alexander and Matthew Worley.

“[Having different coaches] felt different, because we had different coaches last year with different plays,” sophomore center and defensive end Bentley Murrell said. “I kind of remember the plays from last year as a freshman, so it was good to get some more plays in because it was kind of different from what they did.”

With the help of some fellow students, the girls managed to learn new drills and plays to help them win against the other team, including pulling flags, snapping the football and basic drills, such as running offense or defense. 

“We worked on plays a lot — more offense than defense for sure,” Owen Braxmeyer said. “Defense is kind of self-explanatory, but offense, you have to learn plays. Just drawing them up and telling them where to go, how to snap the ball. Snapping the ball was a struggle cause snapping things can all go wrong with that.”

Not only did the girls have fun, but even the coaches enjoyed this experience as well.

“It was really fun. I really enjoyed having the girls around and having them play football, because most of them haven’t played football,” Owen Braxmeyer said. “Or some of them have played other sports and they just want to try it out. So, it’s fun getting to know them and how they function and what their attitude is.”

While some girls are competitive, some just enjoy participating to gain relationships with their fellow peers.

“It’s good to make some new friends because you get to meet a lot of new people that you don’t get to see everyday,” Murrell said.

Even though the blue team didn’t take home the win, according to players, this experience was a great moment in which they built relationships with some of their peers and participated in a memorable high school experience.

“Overall, the whole experience was really fun. It’s meant to bring you closer together with your classmates,” junior Jaiden Weixelman said. “There’s that competitiveness that you want to win really bad and you want to beat the seniors, but at the end of the day, it’s cool to be able to make those connections with the freshman as juniors and just give them hope for the rest of the year.” 

Participating in PowderPuff is highly recommended by the players this year. There is always a chance of building long lasting relationships outside of high school and remembering those moments of how those relationships were made. 

“I felt that it was a good experience,” Stegeman said. “I got to meet a lot of new girls and make new relationships with them and just have a fun time doing it and getting to experience it.”