MVHS kicked off its Olympics-themed Welcome Back Rally, the first of the 2024-2025 school year, on Friday, Aug. 30 in the Main Gym.
The four classes competed in rock, paper, scissors; chicken toss; and basketball trivia. In a new effort to promote unity between classes, ASB leadership introduced new traditions such as the Hype Hammer, Mascot Race and having all four classes wear the same colors.
Senior Ninad Suresh played in the final rally game of basketball trivia, in which players had to answer a trivia question correctly and make a three-point shot to claim victory. Suresh scored the winning shot and as a result, seniors and sophomores tied in first place.
“My thoughts coming into the rally were to have fun with my friends, and obviously it’s my last year at MVHS, and our last Welcome Back Rally, so I just wanted to go and have fun,” Suresh said. “The crowd was loud and it was getting in my head a little bit. I gave myself the leeway to miss — can’t be too stressed about it — but the shot went in, so I was really happy about that. We won basketball trivia, but we didn’t get first place. I don’t think it was really fair, but we didn’t win a lot of our rally games, so I guess that makes sense.”
Sophomore and Spirit Commissioner Jasmine Zhao expressed that while transitions between games could’ve been quicker, she is ultimately proud of how the rally turned out, and hopes to maintain the energy present at the rally in the future.
“None of the Spirit Commission had experience creating rally games, so it was extremely stressful,” Zhao said. “There are definitely some things I wish went smoother, but it didn’t go as bad as I thought, so I’m proud. The energy was on point. In the future, we are going to try to make the rally games more efficient through quicker transitions.”
