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Pack the PAAC

By Tanisha Dighe, The Awty International School, School Buzz Editor and Pranay Palvadi, The Awty International School, School Buzz Editor | February 13, 2018

School Buzz

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Junior Emma Greenwood speeds down the floor and scores.

Being an international school, the most popular sport at Awty is football, not American football. Therefore, the football (soccer) teams are honored at our homecoming game, the primary sporting event students attend. To show enthusiasm and school spirit for all sports at Awty, during the 2015-2016 school year, the Athletics Department implemented events such as Volleypalooza, applauding the volleyball teams, and Pack the PAAC, applauding the Basketball teams.

Pack the PAAC became an annual Awty tradition during the 2015-2016 school year. The event honors all high school basketball players on Junior Varsity and Varsity, both the girls and boys teams. Pack the PAAC has proven to be a successful event as attendance at games, and appreciation for basketball increases every year.

This year, JV Boys team played the JV team from St. Thomas High School and the game was close until the fourth quarter where St. Thomas was able to lead a last minute effort to lift them above the Rams. Next up, varsity girls team played the girl’s team from St. John XXIII and suffered a loss following a competitive first half.

Junior Erkan Bozkurt takes the ball up the court and decides which teammate to pass to.

The main event of the evening was the Boys Varsity team playing the squad from St. Thomas high school. The first half of the game was extremely competitive because junior Erkan Bozkurt was able to put up an impressive 19 points.

“Erkan and the team overall played really well in the first half and made the atmosphere electric,” said junior Sandra Georges.

Unfortunately, in the second half the opposing team was able to use their experience against the Awty squad and eventually defeated them.

“Even though we weren’t able to win tonight, I really appreciate the support from the crowd and it definitely helped us keep the game competitive in the first half,” stated Bozkurt after the game.

Despite the actual outcomes of the games, Pack the PAAC was a success in building more popularity for our basketball teams and for building team spirit.