On Friday before homecoming weekend, Shippensburg University’s student section, the Red Sea, hosted a spirit rally to get students, faculty and alumni all pumped for homecoming weekend and the football game.
Fans were able to enjoy food trucks with a variety of food and games, as well as a DJ playing all kinds of great music. The main goal of the night was to get the Shippensburg school spirit pride going.
The rally was hosted by The Red Sea’s Riley Kendall and President Tyler Olsen who said he “had a lot of fun hosting the event and getting everyone ready for football.”
There were some performances by the cheerleaders who pumped the crowd up with stuns, cheers and band dances. To keep the spirit going, we got to see the dance troupe give a hip-hop performance.
Fans were also given the opportunity to participate in the contest. The first was an air guitar contest where eight people in the crowd were chosen, picked a song and gave their best air guitar performance. The winner of that contest was a young man whose stage name was “Tank.” The next contest consisted of a large crowd of people divided into pairs to see who can snatch the cup up faster. Once the contest started and the number of people started to go down there were only two people left, and the winner was Michael, who won a twenty-five-dollar gift card to Amazon.
During the spirit rally, there were opportunities for dance breaks. Free t-shirts were thrown into the crowd. Kendall and Olsen sparked some competition amongst the crowd to spell out “Ship” and see who could be the loudest.
The event was filled with various sports teams, including football, who were amped up and ready to keep the spirit up for Saturday’s Football game.
Senior offensive lineman Markes Cruz said “he’s excited to see his peers come out and show the spirit they have for our school and team.”
Senior cheerleader Naila Mendez shared that “she enjoys being able to get the crowd excited and feeling the energy they give off”.
Overall, the event set the tone for the events that followed later that night as well as the rest of the Homecoming Weekend.
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