A Homecoming to remember

Gilpin County High School By Sunny Vincent Gilpin County High School’s Homecoming was full of events that will never be forgotten. The football team beat Rocky Mountain Lutheran 40 to 36 in the last seconds of the game. The first Homecoming win in a decade or more, a victory that will never be forgotten and one that was on the news. Fox 31 was at the game recording another unforgettable event. This year’s Homecoming King and Queen are both players on the football team. Seniors Val Romine and Andrew Immordino are both starting football players for Gilpin’s Varsity team. They play side by side, with Andrew being the center and Val the right tackle. Not only were they voted the Homecoming King and Queen by their peers, but they are high school sweethearts. The story was aired live on the 5:00 news for Fox 31, with a lengthier follow up story at 9:00, and is now on their website. The Fox National News also picked up the story, interviewing Val and Andrew early Monday morning and elaborating on the story. Both videos are linked on Gilpin’s website at www.gilpin.k12.co.us . This year’s Homecoming theme was Classic video games. Each class represented a classic video game. The freshmen were Zelda, sophomores were Donkey Kong, juniors were Pac Man, and seniors were Mario Brothers. This year the students worked hard to decorate their hallways and their sponsor’s classroom doors. They also had various activities during lunch to compete for the class with the most spirit. Each day of the week the students dressed up to show their spirit, ending with Black and Gold day on Thursday. The students decorated floats to be driven in the Homecoming parade, which started in Central City and went down through Black Hawk. The floats were judged by a handful of viewers and the sophomore float was voted as the best float in the class competition. With all the activities, each class was awarded points for winning competitions, winning the spirit cheer at the pep assembly, for the percentage of students who dressed up each day for spirit week, and finally for the winning float. At the end of the scoring, the sophomore and senior classes tied for the most spirited. The school plans to have a “spirit-off” to determine the overall winner by the end of this week. On Thursday they also had a pep rally where the cheerleaders led the students in many activities to get their spirits high and the student body excited. The Homecoming court was announced to the crowd. This year’s Homecoming court was: Freshman Count and Countess: Eryk Lorenz and Katie Marr; Sophomore Duke and Duchess: Sam Ghaffari and Milena Sanchez-Molina; Junior Prince and Princess: Ivan Peroza and Kim Wulf Balosch; and the Senior King and Queen: Andrew Immordino and Val Romine. This year was the third year in a row that our foreign exchange student from Germany was voted the Junior Princess. This year, the students voted 6 th grade teacher, Mr. Raynes, and their high school science teacher, Ms. Heather Newman as their staff royalty. They were both crowned teacher King and Queen during the assembly. The high school cheerleaders performed a dance with the lights out and white gloves and shirts on. With a black light shining on them, they were glowing in the dark. The crowed responded with loud cheers for their unique dance this year. The high school volleyball team played hard at their Homecoming games. On Thursday night they played against Nederland, winning the match in three games. Gilpin played a strong game winning the first game 25 – 13. In game two Nederland came out and took a short lead at the beginning, but fell short losing the game to Gilpin with a score of 25 – 18. The final game to seal the match ended with a score of 25-11. The girls started with strong serves ending the match with a 91.5% serving average. The girls ended their season with 12 wins and 7 losses overall this season. In their league play they ended the season with 5 wins and 2 losses putting them in 3 rd place in their league. They will play on Tuesday night at home against Denver Waldorf for their first round of district. The high school football team was surprised when they came out to start the game and Fox 31 News was there to tape the game. Spanish teacher and Student Council Advisor, Su Henry, had let the local TV channels know of the unique Homecoming court we had this year, with our King and Queen both playing on the football team. Fox was there for the entire game, taping everything that was going on. Andrew commented that he couldn’t believe how many people know about him and Val now, and how amazing this experience has been. The game against Rocky Mountain Lutheran was an amazing game to watch. With both teams scoring high points and the Gilpin team fighting to the end, the crowd was loud and excited. The first quarter ended with Rocky Mountain up by two, but Gilpin didn’t let down, even after ending at half time and being down by 10 points, they came out with a new passion and took Rocky Mountain by surprise scoring two touchdowns and holding Rocky Mountain to none. Starting the fourth with a 4 point lead, Gilpin held strong until Rocky Mountain scored a touchdown taking a two point lead. With eight minutes left in the game Val was injured during a play; she was taken off the field on a stretcher and taken to the hospital for x-rays. It was later learned that she has an extreme sprain to her left ankle. With just about three minutes left, Eagle’s Dalton Dziedzic tackled the opposing team quarterback in the end zone, earning a safety for two points. Now Gilpin was only down by 2 points, with less than three minutes to play. The Eagles ran a screen up the middle with Dalton catching a pass from Chase Boulter, and scoring a touchdown with just 33 seconds left in the game. Following that and during the opposing team comeback drive, Chase Boulter caught an interception with 4 seconds left on the clock to stop Rocky Mountain Lutheran in their tracks. The Eagles won with a final score of 40 to 36. It was game that will never be forgotten. Many hoarse voices were heard after all the shouting and cheering from the fans. The students were very worried about Val’s diagnosis on Saturday when the Homecoming dance started. It was a wonderful surprise when Val and Andrew showed up for the dance just 30 minutes late. Val was still in her football uniform when she arrived. With their friends and families’ help they changed in the restrooms and joined the dance. The entire crowd at the dance cheered and clapped as they entered the room. The dance was held at the historic Teller House in Central City this year. The dance committee decorated the room with all the bright colors of the Homecoming theme and had lights flashing and a DJ playing. It was a great atmosphere and the students had fun dancing the night away. It will be a Homecoming that the students of Gilpin County are sure to never forget and one that our community and the country will know about for years to come.

Patrick Henry Sweeney

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