Seniors Take 2023 Classapalooza Crown
Seniors take the victory at Classapalooza 2023 (Photo: Tori Almond).
On Thursday, May 4, SGA hosted their annual Classapalooza event, which is a field day-like tournament between the four cohorts of Toccoa Falls College. SGA President and Vice President Emily Johnson and Jacob Hunt served as referees and instructors. The tournament, hosted at the pond from 2:30 p.m. to 5 p.m., consisted of four major events that the four cohorts competed in for the ultimate crown. Each cohort wore a color determined by SGA: Freshman wore red, sophomores wore blue, juniors wore green, and seniors wore black. After a two and half hour competition, the senior class took home the crown.
Seniors “paddle faster” in hopes of relay win (Photo: Tori Almond).
The first major event was a relay race involving a combination of swimming, running, digging, canoeing, and throwing. For the first part of the relay, team members swam across the pond to “Otter Island,” which held a wheel with animal names and numbers that corresponded to a puzzle. One member of each team was sent into the water at a time. When reaching Otter Island, they memorized as many animal names as they could and the corresponding number before returning to shore and attempting to recreate the puzzle while another team member went to Otter Island to look at the information. Once completed, they received a puzzle piece and ran around the pond to the beach volleyball court, avoiding the sand path due to geese. The volleyball court contained another three members of the team who, after being relayed by the runner, started digging in the sand to find canoe paddles. Once found, they received another puzzle piece and relayed the oar to the final two members who jumped into canoes and paddled out into the water to Otter Island and back to retrieve the final puzzle piece. While the boat was out in the water, the rest of the team tossed balls toward buckets placed in each canoe. Each ball collected, as long as it was thrown while the canoe paddlers were still in the water, counted for extra points. After returning, the puzzle pieces were put together to form a final puzzle. While the junior team finished first, the victory went to the seniors due to extra points collected by balls in their buckets.
Seniors challenge juniors in elimination volleyball (Photo: Tori Almond).
The second event was called “Elimination Volleyball,” which consisted of two relatively normal beach volleyball games except for one twist: whichever team dropped the ball or let it go out of bounds was to lose a member of their team until the last member of the opposing team was out. The first round was a battle between the freshman and the sophomores. After a long and arduous game, the freshman took the win. The second game was between the juniors and the seniors, with the juniors winning. Due to time constraints, the freshman and juniors tied for first and the sophomores and seniors tied for second. After Classapalooza was over, the freshman and juniors fought a final battle for the true winner, but it did not count towards the overall tournament score.
Juniors anticipate “Tube Mania” (Photo: Tori Almond).
The third event was “Tube Mania,” for which each team chose five girls and five boys to represent them in a “Titanic clash” for two types of inflatable floats and a single watermelon. Five rounds were played, where two members of the chosen ten, identified by numbers, were released to battle it out for the floats and watermelon before bringing their prizes back to their teams. Each item was worth a set number of points, which was tallied up for the final score. Circular tube floats were worth one point, large floats were worth two points, and the watermelon was worth three points. The sophomores ended the game in fourth place with twelve points, juniors came in third with thirteen points, freshmen ended in second with nineteen points, and the seniors won with twenty points!
Sophomores and juniors go head to head in the final round of “Tug-of-War” (Photo: Tori Almond).
The final event was “Tug-of-War” at the volleyball court. Each team stood on one side of the net and competed to pull the rope past a marked line in the sand. The first game between freshmen and sophomores led to a freshmen victory. The second game between the juniors and seniors led to a seniors’ victory. The third game between the sophomores and juniors led to a sophomores’ victory. The final round between the freshman and seniors led to a freshmen victory. The game ended with juniors in fourth, sophomores in third, seniors in second, and freshman in first.
The total was divided between all four games. The final placement was as follows:
Seniors
Freshmen
Juniors
Sophomores
One senior remarked how great it was due to the fact that the current seniors came in fourth place last year when they competed as juniors.
A group of sophomore and junior students play Spikeball near the pond (Photo: Tori Almond).
Classapalooza also hosted a variety of activities during the event including spikeball, swimming, canoeing, and general community-building as students laid out on towels and blankets around the pond. SGA also provided cotton candy, popcorn, snow cones, and bottled water for the attendees while playing familiar pop music over the speakers. Even a few professors stopped by to watch the chaos and cheer for their students!
Congratulations to everyone who played and attended the event, and special congratulations to the victorious senior team!