O'Connor: Walpole Succeeds in 41st Annual Holy Cross Classics Day

Editor's note: The following was written by WHS student Colleen O'Connor and published in the school's student-newspaper, The Rebellion. Click here to view this article and more great work on The Rebellion's website.

Walpole brought roughly 40 Latin students to Holy Cross to participate in the 41st annual Holy Cross Classics Day on April 4.

For those out there who have never heard of such gatherings, Classics Day is a special all-day event where students and teachers can celebrate Roman and Greek culture by participating in events like Certamen (quiz-styled game with Latin related questions), chariot races, costume contests, and manuscript contests, to name a few. 

Students came from all over to participate in the prestigious contest; some even came from as far away as Philadelphia and Providence. Walpole did better in Certamen, or the trivia portion, than in past years; however, the chariot race did not end well for the Walpole charioteers.

The day started with the Certamen matchups. Walpole brought four teams from all levels of Latin, but only one of them won their trivia match. The team of sophomores Vivian Ling, Kathleen Flaherty, Colleen O’Connor, and junior Walter Rose beat both Classical High School and Doherty High School by a score of 215-70-0.

After the contest ended, Ling said, “It was a fun experience and [the team] did better than expected.” Flaherty, thinking along the same lines, said, “To win [the] match-up, especially coming from a public school, was pretty exciting.”

Although the quartet won their first round, they did not score high enough to move into the final round and can only hope that they can improve enough to reach the finals next year.

After Certamen ended, all of the participants headed outside to watch the chariot races while the volunteers from Holy Cross’s classics department did the math to find out who would be moving on for Certamen.

Walpole’s only chariot, designed by sophomore Mike Bloom and pulled by junior Jon Kelland, went up against another school’s chariot in the preliminary round match-up. Walpole was expected to do well in the chariot after coming in second overall in last year’s chariot race, losing only to the chariot from St. Sebastian’s, a perennial contender at Classics Day.

The race was much closer than some of the earlier chariot races and came down to the final stretch, even though the final results did not favor Walpole.

After the trip concluded, Mr. Bakale said, “I think we performed very well at Classics Day 2013. Our Certamen teams seemed stronger than usual this year. Next year, I’d like to get a few more chariot teams in the races, and hopefully even some excellent group costumes.”

He was very pleased with the results of the Certamen match, saying, “The quartet of Ling, Rose, Flaherty, and O’Connor absolutely demolished the competition!”

Walpole’s success this year in Certamen and near miss in the chariot race leaves little to the imagination for future Classics Days in the coming years.