Students counted down to midnight in the Grewcock Student Union as homecoming week kicked off with the banner drop Sunday night. Courtesy | Olivia Pero

The Off-Campus Coalition leads midway through homecoming week after Sohn Residence won Wednesday’s trivia competition on a tiebreaker question with Kirn “New Dorm” Residence.

“We’ll use this momentum to carry us through the rest of homecoming week,” junior and OCC member Charlie Cheng said. “Our goal is to win it, and we’re confident that we will.”

OCC is now in first place with 360 points after ranking fourth in trivia, winning the video competition, and ranking second in the banner competition earlier in the week. Sohn currently stands in second place with 285 points, and Simpson Residence ranks third with 280 points.  

Wednesday’s trivia night ran more than half an hour over schedule, coming down to a final question between the Sohn and New Dorm  teams: “How many tons of treasure were on the Whydah Galley when it was sunk?”

The answer was 4.5 tons, and Sohn answered 20 tons. New Dorm overestimated by more, according to junior and Sohn team member Olivia Finch. 

“We were closest, so we ended up in first place,” Finch said. “It was a pretty harrowing experience. Simpson was in first for three rounds, and then suddenly we pulled ahead.”

Trivia included questions on pirate history, pirate ship trivia, books and movies about pirates, and sea monsters. Junior and Sohn resident assistant Abi Laiming said the team studied for an hour in A.J.’s before the event. 

The team’s best category was pirate history, she said, but Finch got almost every question in the sea monsters category correct. 

“Olivia knows an incredible amount about Greek mythology and other kinds of mythology,” Laiming said, “so she rocked the sea creatures section.”

While waiting for the final results, Finch said the Sohn team started doing the macarena to the Jeopardy theme song for five minutes. 

“I’m pretty sure we were descending into madness,” Finch said. 

Laiming said either team could have won the competition. 

“It was literally a coin flip,” she said. 

Cheng collaborated with junior Joshua Burnett to direct and film OCC’s winning video, released on Instagram Tuesday. 

Cheng said the video was inspired by a humorous ad from the TV Show “The Sopranos” called “Life is Short.”

“It’s essentially a dark humor ad encouraging people to try something new everyday,” Cheng said. “I thought the same idea could be applied to pirates very well.” 

Despite not being in the lead midway through the week, junior Jonathan Williams, a Simpson resident assistant, said that the effort and enthusiasm Simpson puts into homecoming week is about more than just winning.

“Simpson dorm has this idea of taking silly things really seriously,” Williams said. “And that’s not just because it’s fun, but it’s also because our brotherhood unites around it. We get to hold on to the great parts of childhood while we also grow older.”

Kappa Kappa Gamma’s banner took first place after banner drop Sunday night with the Off-Campus Coalition and Sohn ranking second and third, respectively. 

Sophomore Eva Bessette and junior Maggie McWhinnie collaborated to design Kappa’s winning banner, which depicted a pirate ship and a detailed drawing of a mermaid. Below this image, the black-and-white banner displayed a line of Latin in gold lettering: “Ex libris Kappa Kappa Gamma,” which means “From the library of Kappa Kappa Gamma.” 

“We found a lot of old medieval book stamps, which we took inspiration from,” McWhinnie said. “It’s supposed to look like the first page in somebody’s personal book. We featured a lot of Kappa icons like the pearl and the shell, the key, and we did a bunch of little irises, which is our sorority flower.”

Senior Phoebe Vanheyningen, a member of Hillsdale’s Students Activities Board creative team, said SAB decided very quickly on the pirate theme because it could be easily incorporated into banners, homecoming videos, and mock rock performances.

“There’s always a big discussion around the homecoming theme,” Vanheyningen said. “This year, I think it was pretty unanimous from the first mention of pirates.”