With the annual CLASH competition being underway, participants from the freshmen to the senior class came together to compete for more pre-CLASH points, and maybe even change the scoreboard a little. On March 26, representatives from each class entered the annual Cardboard Regatta Race at the pool, and safe to say, there was an unexpected victory. With four boats, four racers, and a deck full of supporters, the competitors rowed to the best of their ability with the boats they were given. With the two lunches given to build the boats, the builders quickly built a boat out of cardboard for each of their classes, and it was clear that some turned out more successful than others.

As the first day of building began, all classes quickly got to brainstorming on how to make their boats. However, the juniors did not have many people at their table on the first day and many of the other students were confused and wondered how they would build their boats with only one hour the next day to work. But, with their boats to worry about, the other classes began to construct their vehicles and even though only 3 people could be helping at a time, each table had their crowd of supporters to help and inspire them with new ideas. Each class was equally given four rolls of tape, two box cutters, and 5 boxes to use at their convenience. The freshman brought new ideas to the table this year, as they created a curved boat with two rods to support the bottom of the boat. The sophomores went with a more basic approach and used the boxes in full, but they seemed to use the most tape, which greatly helped them in the upcoming race. Starting on the second day, the juniors quickly built a square boat just big enough for their representative, Sydney Stewart, and even though they only had an hour to build, they completed their project and created a successful boat. The seniors got straight to work on the first day and built a very small boat at first but quickly made revisions the next day for their representative, Julie Rodriguez. All that was left was the race, and after tensions were rising between the classes at lunch, everyone was excited to see who would be victorious.

After school on a Wednesday afternoon, students from all classes gathered at the big pool to finally watch the Cardboard Regatta race. Once all classes were lined up on the deck, one helper from each class held the boat in the water as the racer stepped into it and got ready to start the race. As soon as Mrs. Carson said, “Go!”, all four racers got straight to rowing, however some got farther than others. Immediately the senior and freshman class fell out of their boat and tried to get back in, but were unsuccessful. This only left the sophomores and juniors and racers, Sydney Stewart and Malia Arochi, were neck-and-neck until the sophomores pushed ahead just in time to reach the finish line. After the unexpected win from the sophomores, President Sara Pfonner and class advisor Mr. Distelrath jumped in the pool to celebrate the win. After getting second place, Junior Class representative Chloe Elguira said, “I definitely expected us to win Cardboard Regatta, and I know that this year we used a lot of the same techniques so I thought that we had it in the bag, but after seeing the sophomores, they blew the competition out, and I’m happy they won”. However, Sophomore President Sara Pfonner felt much more joy after the race as she said, “It felt amazing, we put a lot of work into planning and building our boat a the results really showed we picked someone to row the boat that we knew would deliver and she did. It was extremely awesome being underclassmen winning Cardboard Regatta.”

After an unexpected victory and disappointing losses, each class gave their all at this year’s annual Cardboard Regatta and after the sophomore class win, they bumped themselves up to 2nd place on the CLASH leaderboard. Now, the seniors have to fight their way back up to the top, and with CLASH in a little over a month, it’s up to each class to see who will be taking the most points going into the finals competitions. Will there be another unexpected win this year?