With only two points separating the first and second place winners at Saturday’s 44th Chaos Day, Rooks-VanDellen (RVD) took the championship with Boer-Bennink (BB) close behind.
“It feels amazing to have beat the SE dynasty,” Andrea Prins, RVD’s resident director (RD), said. This was Prins’ first win as RD and RVD’s first win since 2005.
“I have the best students in the world and we’re ecstatic,” said Prins.
Not only did RVD win first-place glory, but they also walked away with the Cup of Participation — having had the largest number of team members.
But defending champion Schultze-Eldersveld (SE) came into the games confident and dedicated to claiming a back-to-back title.
“We’re going to win this,” Emily Colledge, SE’s resident director, stated at SE’s opening rally.
Having won four times before, Colledge had never lost a Chaos Day event and was optimistic Saturday morning. “I never lose,” she said.
The games ended with a disappointing fourth place finish for SE, but they didn’t walk away empty handed.
Winning the Cup of Perspective, Colledge said, “Now I’ve won every single trophy you can win at Chaos Day. So I’m still the winningest RD in history.”
BB, taking second place, made a dramatic jump from landing in sixth place last year.
This year was the third year in four years that the games have been held indoors due to rain. But no rain fell Saturday morning during the games.
In addition, SE took the win in the tug of war event, the biggest point-ranking game.
Sophomore Abby Paternoster of SE said during the games, “We knew it was going to be a tough competition this year. We came in with this in mind. But we still have tug of war and we can dominate.”
But winning tug of war was not enough to catch RVD’s lead, which they took from the first game and never lost.
Though RVD held the lead from the opening game, other teams took first place in individual events. “If you look at the scoresheet, there were moments that everyone can celebrate and that’s awesome,” said John Witte, the Dean of Residence Life.
In addition to tug of war, there were six other games, including familiars like the Mind over Matter Puzzle and Mattress Passage Relay. According to Witte, new games are added every year.
“I think the fact that we did a lot of new games helped level out the playing field and give everyone a shot at winning,” Witte said.
BV tied in fifth place with KHvR.
Every year, each dorm takes on a theme. This year, BB was Monsters Inc., RVD was cereal, Noordeweir-VanderWerp were western cowboys, SE was dorm of steel, Kalsbeek-Huizenga-vanReken were rock stars, Bolt-Heyns-Timmer were lifeguards and Beets-Veenstra was Toy Story.
“Andy never comes back [referring to Toy Story 3],” said SE, in friendly banter towards BV, the winners of two year ago.
Joey Hulst, a resident assistant from BV, responded with an inspirational pep talk.
“I don’t think they watched the movie. It’s not about Andy not coming back. It’s about the heart of the toys and their teamwork in figuring out life after Andy,” she said. “It’s loyalty and perseverance. That’s what we’re about.”
