Inaugural Tiger Tournament sends Hammond Creek Middle students to spring break with smiles

Published 8:00 pm Tuesday, April 12, 2022

Hammond Creek Middle School students were able to play sports and carnival games; eat pizza, tacos and other treats; and dance the day away on April 1, their final day of school before spring break, during the school’s first Tiger Tournament.

Perhaps most valuable of all was the opportunity to spend a day with classmates they rarely see during a typical school day, said seventh-grader Ashlyn Hankins.

“My group of friends is on a different hallway, but I get to talk to them all today.”

The dance party in the school cafeteria was a highlight for Emmalynn Underwood, she said. It’s “music we like and dances we know.”

Students could request songs they enjoy, rather than marching to the beat of someone else’s drum, Hankins said.

“It wasn’t awkward (dancing), because all our friends were there.”

And “you could dance with whomever you wanted to,” said seventh-grader Pressley Roberts. “We felt ourselves.”

Roberts, Sydney Brown, Hankins and Underwood were also excited to play dodgeball, they said.

“Everyone cheers” when someone succeeds, Hankins said. “It’s really fun.”

School-wide events like the Tiger Tournament had been on hiatus due to COVID-19, said Brown, a seventh-grader. The former Dalton Middle School last had its annual carnival in 2019, so this was the first middle-school festival for Hammond Creek’s students in grades six and seven.

Last year, in particular, it could be difficult to find motivation to attend school at times, because social events were curtailed out of COVID-19 safety concerns, said seventh-grader Andrea Najera.

“This makes you more involved, and you want to go to school.”

Hammond Creek’s Parent Teacher Organization organized and conducted the Tiger Tournament as a fundraiser, said Courtenay Cholovich, theater arts teacher and drama director at Hammond Creek, who noted, “The whole school is participating today.”

For $5, Najera “was able to create my own soccer team” and play against her classmates, she said. “We finished fourth — out of four — but it was still fun.”

Abby Perez enjoyed several inflatables, including one modeled after the Hungry Hungry Hippos game and another in which a giant ball swings around on a tether, with the goal being to avoid being knocked off one’s pedestal, said the seventh-grader.

“I did really bad, but it was fun.”

The carnival was “a nice break from school, and it’s good to have,” Najera said. “You can just chill and have fun.”