On Saturday, October 28, 2023, West Morris Central’s fiercest junior and senior girls faced off in the school’s second annual Powderpuff flag football game. The game served as an abundantly successful fundraising event for the Sarah’s Fight for Hope Foundation, raising just about $1,600.
What began as purely an idea for an IB Career Programme Service Learning Project last fall has quickly turned into one of the most highly-anticipated (and entertaining) events of the school year. WMC Class of 2023 graduates and former IBCP students Olivia Cancel, Karissa Miller, Katie Dore, Amanda Even, Maggie Goldberg, and Grace Sokolowski worked with the school’s administration, as well as with the Sarah’s Fight for Hope foundation and the Sarah’s PALS club at WMC to bring the event to fruition in its first year. This year, they passed the torch to student leaders Mackenzie Flammer, Sammie Mancuso, Jamie Ryan, and Julia Rojas.
After coordinating the logistics of this year’s game with WMC administration and the Sarah’s Fight for Hope Foundation and Sarah’s PALS club, the girls worked together to recruit twenty-two players and four coaches for each team. Bryce Cammarata, Garrett Crisp, Tyler Wu, and Jacob Morris, four of WMC’s star senior football players, led the senior team to a landslide victory. The junior team was coached by Brady Bentrewicz, Brady Ashburn, Jaxon Corkery, and Danny Brozowski.
Leading up to the event, the two teams practiced every Sunday morning in October at Rock Spring Park. The coaches established positions for each player on their respective teams, and then proceeded to lead them through multiple warm-up drills and draw plays to be utilized during the actual game. At the end of each practice, the junior and senior teams scrimmaged each other to get a grasp on the areas on which they needed to improve upon before the game. Based on scrimmage performance alone, it was rather obvious that seniors were going to be quite successful come game time.
The senior team absolutely dominated the juniors, winning the game by a whopping 36-0. Hayden Scotti punched one through the uprights in the first quarter of the game, while Kaitlyn Martire added more points to the scoreboard with a strong field goal, putting the seniors up 8-0. Scotti also scored again for the senior team later in the game, with her remarkable performance earning her this year’s “Player of the Game” title. Also adding points to the board for the senior team were members Jillian Nestor with two touchdowns, and Brianna Flores with one.
Unfortunately, the junior offense was unable to find any way to score throughout the game, however valiant efforts were made by Paytyn Crisp, Erin Reade, and Addy Vazquez.
While the junior team of course desired a different game time outcome, the 2023 Powderpuff football game was an undoubtedly successful fundraiser, raising awareness and money for an incredibly important cause and having fun while doing so.
