Students Say: Breck Offers Best Rivalry Mystery Athlete

SPA, Providence Academy among top vote-getters

Amelia Bush | Managing Editor

Picture this: you wake up energized for the day, you get to play your rival team, something you have been looking forward to all year. You feel ready and your team gets pumped as you step onto the feild. There is only one question remaining, what school are you picturing as your rival? Throughout February, students were asked who they thought Blake’s biggest rival was. A variety of responses were recieved. 49.6% of the 121 responses (60 people), believe Breck is our biggest rival.

Dom Cornforth ‘24 stated his argument for Breck: “As the former Blake superfan I would go to all of the [Blake] sporting events. It didn’t matter what sport it was, the biggest crowds showed up to games against Breck… I was also told that if I was to only go to one hockey game for the year, it should be the one against Breck…But it wasn’t only for hockey, for multiple other sports, such as basketball, I was specifically requested to go to the Breck games, because… those where the games that I was told get the craziest, and are the most enjoyable. Only when we win, of course.”

Aidan Krush ‘23 agreed, saying, “Breck is our biggest rival because their school appears to be incredibly similar to [Blake]. Many people at Blake have friends at Breck. And, Breck is the closest to us geographically. Additionally, Breck students are [identitcal] to Blake students except they are slightly worse at everything.”

Chizo Nwokocha ‘25 disagrees. She is one of the 10 students that voted SPA. She said, “As a fencer, SPA is one of the only significant teams that we actually fence against.”

In addition, 13 students believe that Providence Academy is the biggest rival. Bennett Vavrichek ‘24 says, “For track they are the biggest rival [and have the] most annoying student section at other sports.”

An anonymous survey response added that “Breck is worse than us at pretty much everything but they like to think they are our main rival. Providence is a way more legitimate rival and the history makes it more interesting too.”

Bart Glover ‘26 agrees stating that Providence Academy is “now our biggest rival because in the 2019 football season, the Wolfpack had a game against them that resulted in them becoming our rivals, as well as in last basketball season they knocked us out of the playoffs.”

12 students think Benilde St. Margaret’s is Blake’s biggest rival. One survey responder argues, “BSM is our biggest rival because out of this list not a lot of these schools have teams for my sport, ultimate; BSM does and they are at about the same level as us.”

Several other schools also recieved votes, including Wayzata with two votes, Minnehaha Academy with three, and St. Thomas Academy with one. The full results of this poll are visible online.

Basketball captain provides leadership

Liam Coley | Contributing Writer

This month’s mystery athlete is leading her team dispite setbacks. She has been playing basketball for eight years and half of her experience has been with Blake. This year, she is one of the team captains. Teammate Leyla Lyu ‘25 says, “She is very supportive [and]... she makes sure everyone knows what’s happening.”

When asked about why she keeps coming back to the sport, she says, “I’ve always loved it… I’ve played it for so long that it doesn’t really—like I’ve never really considered not playing it. Also, I have made really good relationships with my teammates. So it’s like, [the] social [aspect] and also like during the basketball season I’m more in shape than I am in any other season.”

Lyu describes her performance on the court, “She is a very, very strong, like physically strong player. She is really good at getting rebounds and she always works very hard on the court. You can tell just by watching her.”

Last year, the girls’ basketball team lost 12 seniors, and in their absence, underclassmen have stepped up to lead the team. Elaborating on the difficulties the team has been experiencing as of late, the athlete says, “This is the second year in a row where we get a new coach, so basically we have been jumping from coach to coach. And losing all those seniors, so there’s four high schoolers on the team, and the rest are all middle schoolers.”

The captains have been trying their hardest to lead the team despite setbacks and this mystery athlete feels that the team’s record does not reflect the effort they have been putting in this season.