Mei-Lien
Level 4
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INTRODUCTION
The summer tournaments of 2026 featured a wide variety of sports and challenges for all teams to overcome. In this article I will discuss the preparation of the pep rally routine, the controversy of the referees, and the peculiar situation at the rewards ceremony. This article also features all the tournaments and their respective winners, so if you were sleeping or living under a rock: you will know who won, and who didn’t, by the end of this article! I made sure to include pictures as well, taken by the lovely members and co-workers I have in Journalism, so credits to them for taking some of the media included in this article. Apart from this, I will also discuss some of the controversy regarding tournaments, and remain as neutral as is expected of a Journalist like me! Have a fun read, WINNERS!
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THE PEP RALLY
The pep-rally consisted of two speeches given by two members of the SLT: Sosuke Akiyama and Oshiro Takagi. The speech primarily focused on how the tournaments would progress and what the students could expect to see over the course of the next two weeks. After this brief introduction came to an end, the two cheer teams were allowed to perform their respective routines. Bobcat cheer was granted the ability to go first and notably performed a routine to the song ‘iconic by mistake’, ‘pinky up’, ‘cell block tango’, and ‘back it up’, with Spartan cheer performing a wide series of different songs thrown together that I have sadly not been able to dig up for this article. However, I managed to interview Trinity Takagi, captain of the Bobcat cheerleading-team, in order to get a better look inside of the preparation that goes into a routine for an event as big as this one was for the sports members and their respective captains.
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INTERVIEW
W.W: ‘What did you do in order to prepare yourself and how many times were practices held?’
T.T: ‘Oh gosh, like a million times.’
T.T: ‘It’s honestly difficult to pin-point a number because we were practicing for weeks before the Pep Rally. I think I started teaching the routine in early June, so it was roughly six weeks of practice.’
T.T: ‘During the early days it’s all about teaching. I often teach the steps of the routine in sections, it really depends on the complexity of the moves. I often watched and gave notes where I needed to and once everybody had it down, it was just rinse and repeat. It was a long six weeks.’
W.W: ‘What songs were used for your routine, and why were these specific songs used?’
T.T: ‘So our mix consisted of four songs: Cell Block Tango, Iconic By Mistake, Pinky Up and Back It Up. With this routine I really wanted to tell a story, so all of the song choices were intentional. It took us a long time to get this mix together but I was really happy with the outcome. That took up a lot of our learning time in June. So we chose these songs as there's been a lot of hate directed towards my team, we've been labelled insulting names, had horrible comments made about us in person and online and overall been mistreated. I decided I wanted to respond but in our own way.’
T.T: ‘A lot of people may not have known but our intro song was from a musical called Chicago. The song Cell Block Tango is very dramatic and we decided to use this as a way to begin telling our story. Six of us used labels we'd been given and debunked the lies, hence where Iconic By Mistake comes in. What we were basically saying was all the attention we've been given by insulting us has only made our spotlight brighter.’
W.W: ‘Finally, how did you manage to adapt to losing your twelfth member at the last minute?’
T.T: ‘Thank you so much, yeah that was definitely a toughy. I basically had to go in the day before the performance and rearrange all of our formations. I went through each one and moved cheerleaders around where I could whilst still maintaining the same structure and without disrupting what the team had already learned too much. Some of the team had more changes to learn than others, it really just depended on where the gap was during the routine. That was a huge stress for me, I cannot lie. Once I had the formations re-worked, I got to work on individually teaching the updated formations to each cheerleader. I essentially spent the whole day before the performance adapting and teaching. Luckily I have an incredible team who worked with me to quickly pick up the new formations with very little struggle.’
T.T: ‘My team is truly amazing and it wouldn't of been possible without them. Biggest shout out to them!’
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PEP RALLY PICTURES
[CREDITS: Str4wberriGrim]
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SPECULATION
Whilst it is not confirmed, it has been widely speculated that the referees were paid off by the Spartans. In a few instances they were even compared to speculation of bribery in the world cup. Despite it not being confirmed, fingers were quickly pointed at the fact that a lot of the referees were retired Spartan jocks. This does make people question how fair some of the games were treated, with some even claiming that ‘Bobcats would have won them all if it weren’t for these referees’, but this still remains speculation to this day. Everyone is allowed to have their own freedom of opinion and speech regarding this topic. On a different note, no mention, medal, or trophy was given to either cheer-team during the rewards ceremony, leading to most of the cheerleaders walking out earlier. This has also sparked controversy, especially considering the hard work the cheerleaders have put in long before the pep rally in order to perform, as well as attending most (if not all) or of the actual tournaments from the teams. Without further comment on this, here are the end results of the 2026 Summer Tournaments!
END RESULTS
FOOTBALL - SPARTAN MALE TEAM
BASKETBALL - BOBCAT MALE TEAM
VOLLEYBALL - BOBCAT FEMALE TEAM
DODGEBALL - BOBCAT TEAM
BASEBALL - SPARTAN TEAM
TRACK - SPARTAN TEAM
SWIM - BOBCAT TEAM
SPECULATION
Whilst it is not confirmed, it has been widely speculated that the referees were paid off by the Spartans. In a few instances they were even compared to speculation of bribery in the world cup. Despite it not being confirmed, fingers were quickly pointed at the fact that a lot of the referees were retired Spartan jocks. This does make people question how fair some of the games were treated, with some even claiming that ‘Bobcats would have won them all if it weren’t for these referees’, but this still remains speculation to this day. Everyone is allowed to have their own freedom of opinion and speech regarding this topic. On a different note, no mention, medal, or trophy was given to either cheer-team during the rewards ceremony, leading to most of the cheerleaders walking out earlier. This has also sparked controversy, especially considering the hard work the cheerleaders have put in long before the pep rally in order to perform, as well as attending most (if not all) or of the actual tournaments from the teams. Without further comment on this, here are the end results of the 2026 Summer Tournaments!
END RESULTS
FOOTBALL - SPARTAN MALE TEAM
BASKETBALL - BOBCAT MALE TEAM
VOLLEYBALL - BOBCAT FEMALE TEAM
DODGEBALL - BOBCAT TEAM
BASEBALL - SPARTAN TEAM
TRACK - SPARTAN TEAM
SWIM - BOBCAT TEAM
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CONCLUSION
Out of all the seven team sports we offer at Karakura’s high school and college: four were won by the Bobcat teams, and three were won by the Spartan teams! This means that the Bobcats have won the summer tournaments, and the word of this being ‘bobcat summer’ has been going around on onrain. I wish everyone a healthy dose of rest now that the tournaments have gotten to an end. That was all from me today, have a lovely day or night, WINNERS!
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