A recently-added Homecoming activity put a hurting to seniors' pride Wednesday during lunch hours at Marion High School.

Late underclass squads' heroics kept the senior powderpuff football teams from advancing to the evening's championship rounds in an activity MHS football coach Kerry Martin guessed to be five years  old.

In the early lunch-hour battle, the freshmen — a.k.a. "Tarlton's Terminators" after coach Jeff Tarlton — bested the seniors in a sudden-death field-goal competition, 2-1, after a scoreless game. Libby Landes nailed the winning kick.

"It was great," she said. "I didn't think I'd get to do that."

In the late lunch hour, the junior squad — "Manfredo's Mafia" — beat the sophomores with a last-second touchdown on a quarterback carry called by coach Marty Manfredo.

Despite encouragement from a few of the early lunch's seniors, Martin's spread offense didn't fare well against the juniors, who won, 1-0 in the field-goal tiebreaker.

The juniors won the evening championship game, 12-6, under a light rain. Before a deluge washed out activities, two acts of the lip-sync contest entertained a crowd of students and parents.

A range of tactics was employed in the quest for powderpuff supremacy. Tarlton's squad had practiced for a week with a rather thick playbook — by powderpuff standards — only to end up using a handfull of plays in the games. Martin tried a modified version of his Friday night offense. Manfredo's offense was called "hike the ball and scream a lot."

Despite all the time supposedly devoted to practice, Tarlton admitted his squad found better use of the time.

"They spent the majority of the time picking their shirts and what to put on the back," he said.

The powderpuff student championship game and champions vs. faculty games, a lip-sync contest and bonfire are scheduled for Wednesday night. Look for an updated story Thursday if activities aren't rained out.

Homecoming week wraps up Friday and Saturday. The parade leaves MHS at 12:45 bound for Tower Square. Marion battles Carbondale at 7 p.m. on the football field. On Saturday, the royalty coronation will be at 7 p.m. followed by the dance from 8-11:30 p.m.