Manhattan High PowderPuff football and cheer teams have been working hard at practice to achieve the goal of entertaining students during Homecoming week.

“Expect a good and funny show,” Lawson Monico, senior, said.

PowderPuff has been a tradition at MHS for a long time. PowderPuff is a football game where the traditional gender roles are swapped and the cheer team is made up of senior boys and the football team is made up of girls. To be on the cheer team you have to be a senior guy and you sign up by volunteering. The football team is made up of all high school girls that volunteer for the game.

The cheer team will be performing at the pep rally as well as at the football game. They are taught a choreographed routine by predetermined peers. The team this year is smaller than previous years have been with less than 20 scheduled to cheer. The boys practice cheer Monday through Thursday after school until around 4:30 p.m.

The girls that volunteered this year to be put on the football team were then placed on two teams. The teams are divided by grades with the freshman and juniors on one team and sophomores and seniors on another. Eventually, they end up facing off in the PowderPuff game. They practice after school just like the cheer team does.

“I’m very excited for PowderPuff because we get to pump up the whole school for the game,” Kevin Kilner, senior, said.