By Kaylee Rivera
On September 20th, the El Diamante Miners football team played against the Mission Oak Hawks at the Groppetti Community Stadium in this year’s homecoming game. This game was filled with excitement on and off the field as this year’s Homecoming King and Queen were announced.
Before kickoff, the homecoming nominees were introduced to the crowd. The queen nominees were: Kalani Anaya, Kalindi Carginan, Skylar Welton-Doyal, Bella Rodriquez, and Grace Yates. The king nominees were: Joseph Bediwi, Brian Enriquez, Christian Freeman, Diego Medina-Guitierrez, and Logan Tavarez.
Photo by: Jordan Beverly
These nominees waited in anticipation for halftime when the king and queen were announced. While they waited, the homecoming football game kicked off. In the first quarter, Mission Oak scored a pick 6 in a 30-yard return to bring the game to 0-6. After a successful PAT, the new score going into the second quarter was 0-7. The second quarter was no different for Mission Oak as they scored two touchdowns and two PAT’s on the Miners, bringing the score to 0-21 going into the halftime.
With halftime came the exciting moment where this year’s Homecoming King and Queen were crowned. All the nominees stood in a line with boxes in front of them. At the same time, the nominees lifted the balloon-filled boxes, with two boxes having the golden balloon, marking who had won King and Queen.
Before the boxes were lifted, many nominees expressed what they were feeling at that moment. Homecoming King nominee Christian Freeman expressed, “I felt a lot of nervousness and I definitely was a little anxious.”
Although the homecoming experience came to an end, Freeman expressed that the best moments of being in the homecoming court were, “doing all the activities. Even though I didn’t, like, win any, I still had fun doing them.”
Photo by: Jordan Beverly
As the boxes were lifted, it was revealed that this year’s Homecoming King and Queen were Grace Yates and Joseph Bediwi.
After the halftime excitement ended, the football game was back in action. With the Miners trailing behind, Junior middle linebacker Carson Dardi stated, “We needed to not give up any more points because our tackling was struggling in the first half.”
The Miners were successful in keeping the Hawks away from the endzone in the second half. In the third quarter, the Miners scored a safety, making the score 2-21 going into the fourth quarter. However, the Miners were unable to come back, leaving the game with a loss and score of 2-21.
Despite the loss on the field, off the field, there were wins for the Miners. Congratulations to Grace Yates and Joseph Bediwi.