For freshman Rishi Ray, playing football is something that he does after school to have fun. This previous time however, it was quite the experience.

After leaving Speech and Debate after school, he joined his friends Maurya Akula, Garrett Peters and Jack Pietoso to go play football. Peters’ backyard was the perfect candidate for a “field” to play on. It was a high scoring game; at one point, after trading several scores, the score was 56-56. Neither Ray and Peters or Pietoso and Akula could break through.

“After the score was 56-56, we decided to play to 100,” Ray said.

Then, Ray and Peters went up 70-56 and held one of the two touchdown leads in the entire game. Unfortunately for them, their lead was short lived, as the score became once again tied at 70-70.

“At the end of the game, we just continued to trade touchdowns,” Ray said.

Since their rule was to win by two touchdowns, no team could push through until the very end, where Peters intercepted a long pass from Pietoso and scored. However, Pietoso’s dad called, so they made another rule change: whichever team was leading when Pietoso had to leave was the winner. Then, on Ray and Peters’ next possession, Ray ran the ball in and scored, putting them up by two touchdowns again. Then, in the final seconds, on the final possession, Ray intercepted Pietoso’s pass at the goal line, effectively leaving no chance for a comeback.

When asked to describe the whole experience, Ray simply said, “tiring.”