Class of 2020 Captures Their 4-Peat!

Devon Beacham

Staff Writer

The class of 2020 had a possibility at becoming the second class in New Hope-Solebury’s school history to clinch a four-peat in the annual Spirit Week. This year’s Spirit Week was one for the books. A huge component of the week is to bring in cans and coins, and this year, records were broken in both categories. Over 18,000 pounds worth of cans were brought in by the Blue and Gold Team combined. The can donations go to Operation Helping Hand, which distributes food throughout food banks in Bucks County. Records were also broken in coin wars, totaling $5,200. These profits go to the Leukemia and the Lymphoma Society. On Monday night, students gathered to participate in the Spirit Week Luau. During this event, sports gear such as bats, gloves, helmets, balls, and cleats were collected and given to the Pitch in for Baseball and Softball organization in Harleysville, which distributes the equipment to communities in need in the Philadelphia area. Over one-hundred of each item was collected at the Luau. In addition to that, throughout the week, National Honors Society raised over one-thousand dollars selling Saint Baldrick’s t-shirts, wristbands, and bandanas.

The first event was the Super Smash tournament. Junior, Alan Wu defeated senior, Rhys Mccollum, in the Super Smash Bros championship. On Wednesday, each team had four groups of four that participated in Family Feud. To no surprise, the game ended in a tie. After school on Wed., each team was allowed to prepare for their hallway decoration competition. During the hall decorating, teams had the ability to practice their dances, lip syncs, and special talents for the MANE event that would occur the next day.

On Thurs., the MANE event took action. The minute to win it challenge was first, with two very entertaining games, which also ended in a tie between the two teams. After that, a powerful performance by the freshmen ladies enabled them to take down the sophomores. Breakout performance by juniors Bryan Dougherty and Davis Nagg allowed them to defeat the senior girls’ dance. The freshman duet by Declan Curran and Nick Messick lip-syncing “Gotta go my own way” from High School Music fell short to the talented Jake Masino and Kyle Northrop duet. Junior, Alexander Walinski, said “I thought it was a strong performance by Masino and Northrop, they went out there and put in a lot of effort, and it showed” Juniors Ralphie Miller and Joseph Capriotti also performed a duet, singing along to “Love is an Open Door” from the popular Frozen film. It was a strong performance from the two, but the seniors had a powerful performance as well. Lear Asplundh, Michael Borys, Parker Cane, and Justin Horak sang and danced along to “September” by Earth, Wind, and Fire along with William Kelley and William MacDowell dancing across the stage on rollerblades. In their 70’s outfits, the boys leaped to victory in their last ever performance as seniors. The after school festivities included hallway decorating and the volleyball tournament. The junior team “Pay the man” captured first place and seniors “Sherms children” second in volleyball.

To end the 2020 Spirit Week were the Friday Games which would break the neck-and-neck scores, to ultimately determine which team would win Spirit Week. To start off the games, the gold team took a massive lead, winning many of the obstacle course games, along with the magic carpet event. They gained great momentum, but then the Blue team turned it around and capitalized during the blind fold competition and pedestal 1 vs. 1 tug of war. Following this, it was back and forth between the Gold and Blue team wins. Mike Borys came in clutch with a 1-try half court shot for the second year in a row. Following the games, it was announced that the freshmen and seniors came in fourth and third place for the hallway competition. Sophomores and juniors came in first and second place. This was huge for the Gold team after Blue dominated them with cans. In the end, Mr. Gonsiewski threw up the Blue team’s flag and all Seniors and Freshman stormed the middle of the court.
  Michael Borys and Connor Fitzgerald contributed to this article.