As Palisade High School dives into homecoming week, many festivities and traditions arise, including one of the most favorite, powder puff and rough n’ tough. Every year for homecoming, each grade sets two teams, one of which is boys playing volleyball, and the other is girls playing either kickball or dodgeball. This year the girls are playing dodgeball, and are coached by the boys in their grade. The boys in each grade are being coached by each girl in the grade who plays volleyball. Kate Fricke, a sophomore at Palisade High School who is participating in Powderpuff states, “ I scanned the QR code as soon as it came out. Since then, we have had one practice and our coaches are Ian Shiao, Eli Jordan, and Hunter Howard. They have been teaching us how to throw it really hard, how to catch the ball, and what the strategy is when we run and get the balls. I think people really benefited from the coaching.” Although this competition is just for fun, it gets pretty competitive and a lot of excitement is a part of it. Fricke says, “ I am really excited to play the juniors because I know a lot of them and I feel like our team could really go at them. To the sophomore team, there are a lot of key players that will be very good.” Joe Bravo is a senior at Palisade, High School, and has participated in rough n’ tough his whole high school career. He explains how he has never been successful in winning a game. Bravo explains, “It’s kind of sad it being my last year because it was pretty fun trying to beat everyone. Even though we were not successful last year, this is our year. I think this year we have the best players and I don’t think anyone is going to beat the seniors.” The powder puff and rough n’ tough games are more competitive than ever and each student participating in them examines intense motivation to be the next winners.