Burroughs spirit week is always an exciting time among the Burroughs community due to anticipation for the athletic contests, which took place the weekend of September 22nd. On this year’s spirit weekend, nine varsity competitions were held between Burroughs and its rival, MICDS. Of these nine, Burroughs was victorious in five of them. The Bombers won in boys cross country, girls tennis, boys soccer, girls volleyball, and girls golf.

CROSS COUNTRY

The day began with the first-ever “Battle for the Belt,” a head to head cross country meet between Burroughs and MICDS which was run during the “JBS-MICDS fun run”. The Boys Cross Country teams started running at MICDS and finished 2.4 miles away at Burroughs. Burroughs junior Brandon Miller took first place, with senior captain Sandeep Amarnath, Samuel Wang ‘21, and Daniel Martin ‘21 finishing second, third, and fourth respectively, handing the belt to Burroughs “Everyone was able to beat their man making for a very good race,” said Amarnath.

GIRLS TENNIS

The Girls Tennis team faced MICDS on Saturday morning and came away with a dominant  8-1 victory. This scoreline is quite routine for last year’s state-runners up team, which is currently 12-0 in the Metro League, having won 97 out of 100 of their individual matches. The team is led by senior captain Kate Stengel, as well as last year’s Girls Tennis player of the year, junior Sami Remis.

BOYS SOCCER

The Boys Soccer team faced MICDS three weeks prior to their Spirit Week contest on August 28th in the Metro League tournament semifinal. The Bombers fell to the Rams, 2-1, with the final goal awarded to the Rams in penalty kicks. When these teams met again during Spirit Week, the winner once again could not be decided in the regularly-allotted 80 minutes. The score was tied 2-2 going into 10 minutes of extra time, with goals from John Cordia ‘22 and Andrew Keeney ‘19. The additional time still did not yield a winner, and the game would head to another penalty shootout for the second time in their two meetings. Goalkeeper  John Nash ‘19 gave the team two penalty kick saves, allowing the Bombers to get revenge on the Rams in a game so similar to the first. “In such a close distance that is a penalty kick, you really have to guess which way the player is going to shoot the ball,” Nash said. “In my case, I just happened to guess right twice.”

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL

The Girls Volleyball match was also one filled with lots of excitement and suspense. Burroughs claimed the first two sets; however, the Rams answered back by winning the third and fourth. The fifth set was back and forth, with MICDS having multiple match points in a row which the Bombers had to fend off. “In such a high stakes situation like a match point with the crowd so into the game, it’s very hard to stay focused. I think we as a team were really able to focus in and rally to victory,” said Abby Philpott ‘21, a member of the team. The Bombers rallied back to steal the victory away from the Rams.

GIRLS GOLF

The last of the Spirit Week matchups was on September 26th between the MICDS and JBS Girls Golf teams at Forest Park. The Burroughs golf team won 155-173, a large 18-stroke margin of victory. Junior Ann Zhang led the way for the Bombers with 37 strokes, only two strokes over par. The golf team’s victory was also Burroughs’ fifth varsity victory of the weekend, with a 5-4 record in all varsity contests.

The Burroughs-MICDS spirit weekend always tends to be a fun one with great games and memories, this weekend proved to be no different.