Each year, Chadwick’s Homecoming means a week of celebrations and games unlike any other. This year’s games, which started a week later than normal, continue one of Chadwick’s favorite traditions with new aquatic twists for the senior class theme: Senior Surfers.
Even before this school week started, Homecoming was in full force. Chadwick’s football team hosted Avalon School last Friday afternoon, winning a hard-fought match, 14-3, surrounded by a wave of Chadwick blue. The weekend was full of frenzied students balancing studying and preparing outfits for the week, with Friday’s game hyping students up for the activities to come.
This week’s games started with the Water Balloon Toss. Clad with cowboy boots, bandanas and Vineyard Vines shirts for the Country vs. Country Club dress-up theme, students from each grade and the faculty took to the Main Lawn. The event featured students tossing water balloons to each other while keeping the balloons fully intact.
Despite their best efforts, the seniors were the first grade to be fully eliminated. The faculty followed shortly after, and the freshman’s final balloon eventually popped. This brought up an intense finale: a battle between sophomores and juniors.
The final round had only two grades remaining, each with two pairs standing. One more round passed, and each grade was left with one group. Junior Jai Ratnayake made one final toss to fellow junior Ezekiel Robel, which he successfully caught. This was the final catch made, and ultimately, the game-winner for the Class of 2026.
“It feels great to get my grade the ‘W.’ It was great to win with my basketball teammate,” Ratnayake said.
Later, at lunch on Monday, the Upper School met in the gym for Hungry Hungry Sharks, an event that last year’s Homecoming committee established with great success. This event was very competitive, with each grade trying new strategies to varying degrees of success.
Each round was a back-and-forth affair. The standings changed each round, but the juniors came out on top with 63 points, narrow margins of victory over the freshmen and seniors, who had 54 and 58 points, respectively. The sophomores finished farther behind with a total of 45.
With two victories in hand, the juniors had cemented their lead, but the most important events had yet to come.
Tuesday saw two favorites return: Wick Wipeout and the Lip Sync Battle. Both of these events saw intense competition with every grade. The first match started off with an underdog victory, where the freshman crew beat the seniors in an intense match, and they eventually won the dodgeball title in a final round against the juniors.
“I came into this challenge knowing that we would win,” freshman Cullen Gustafson said. The underdog freshmen have put up a fight so far, uncharacteristic of a grade that normally finishes last each year.
Later, the entire Upper School met for the second-biggest event of the week during lunch, the Lip Sync Battle.
“To me, the Lip Sync is about working in the grade toward a common goal,” said senior Nathan Castro. “It brings us together as a community. It’s also about school spirit and showing students’ hidden talents, and all in all, it’s an event for the entire community to enjoy.”
Since its debut in 2022, the Lip Sync Battle has quickly become a student favorite. Students choreograph and rehearse months in advance, culminating in a full-on dance battle that took place in the gym this year. Each grade showed off their carefully rehearsed dance moves, which ended in the entire senior class storming the stage.
The seniors won the event, followed by the rest of the grades in sequential order. Before that, however, many faculty members performed their own dance, which included a routine to artist Chappell Roan’s HOT TO GO!
To recap, halfway through the week, the juniors have a comfortable lead over every other grade. The Lip Sync’s doubled points, however, puts the seniors in a good position to close the gap.
Competition Rankings as of Tuesday, October 22:
Dodgeball:
1st – Freshmen
2nd – Juniors
3rd – Seniors
4th – Sophomores
Lip Sync:
1st – Seniors
2nd – Juniors
3rd – Sophomores
4th – Freshmen
Current Standings:
Junior Lifeguards 10
Sophomore Tsunamis 6
Senior Surfers 5
Freshman Floaters 5
Fintastic Faculty 3
The Mainsheet 