Early Saturday morning, October 15th, the Friends School campus was busy. Today was the big Rivalry Day versus The Park School of Baltimore. Park, despite being the away team, came in numbers: over 100 people, all wearing white.

The first event of the day was field hockey, in which the Quakes barely held on to a tie, with the ball only feet from the goal when Deering field’s horn sounded.

Boys JV soccer was up next. The crowd was noisy, wielding megaphones and makeshift drums made from Home Depot buckets. Max Palmer was the spark of this 1-0 contest, with a lovely cross into the middle for an assist. Other highlights included a jumping save from Ben Keller, and Sevie Schulhoff dancing around defenders. With a close 1-0 victory, JV started the soccer games with a win.

Boys Varsity soccer was up next, and they had the same boisterous crowd at the start. But Mother Nature had other plans. Rain started to pour down, and most of the crowd shuffled out, leaving a mob of umbrellas.

An umbrellaless crowd of 20-30 dedicated fans stuck it out anyway. The game got very chippy at the end, and both benches received yellow cards. After a whistle, Captain Leo Scharff ran up to the crowd, hyping them up. The crowd, which had mostly returned now that the rain was mostly gone, went crazy. A nearby fan commented that “this game just needs to end,” as the yellow cards and warnings piled up.

The drums got even louder in the final minutes. The scoreboard stopped working, so every few minutes, the time remaining would play on the loudspeaker. With a 3-0 Friends lead, the final minutes simply prolonged the inevitable. After the game, the crowd flooded onto the field in celebration.

Now, with the score of 3.5 – 2.5, the worst Friends could do in the Rivalry Day matchups was to tie Park, which would keep the cup at Deering.

Girls’ Varsity soccer got out to an early lead and never looked back. With a hat trick from Captain Maya Carnes, the last game was a 6-0 blowout in favor of the Quakers.

At the end of the day, the Quakes won 4.5 points to 2.5, with victories from Cross Country, boys’ JV Soccer, and the girls’ and boys’ Varsity Soccer, along with a tie from Field Hockey. Also winning on the day, but not contributing to the rivalry day score, were girls’ Varsity and JV Volleyball.

Congratulations to all teams that played!