Students filled the bleachers, separated by their class colors. They cheered loudly as their classmates threw and narrowly avoided the dodgeballs flying around the gym. This last event would be a tiebreaker to decide that year’s winner of the Valley Cup.

The first Valley Cup was introduced in 2008, starting the tradition of holding three or four assemblies every year.

However, in recent years, many students have not been as excited about the school-wide competition as they were when it was first introduced. The student council is brainstorming ideas to resolve the issue.

Executive Council President Emilio Quevedo has noticed a decline in enthusiasm since his freshman year.

Quevedo and the Executive Council are working on an idea to have Pascack Valley and Pascack Hills compete against each other next year to increase excitement. The grade winners from each school would compete for the title of the overall district winner.

Because Quevedo wants more students to have a positive mindset about Valley Cup, the Executive Council has been adding different events to make the activities less competitive and more humorous. Quevedo’s goals as president are to make the Valley Cups more entertaining and to encourage the students to look forward to every event that is held.

Principal Mr. Tom DeMaio is fully aware of the situation. He believes the Valley Cup is still the same at its core, but has noticed low enthusiasm levels with the seniors and past graduating classes.

“Senior classes have been through Valley Cups for 4 years,” DeMaio said. “Some of them seem to not get into it as much as freshmen, sophomores, and juniors.”

In addition, Valley Cup is used to raise awareness for the class causes, which each class chooses during their freshman year.

“Intertwined with the Valley Cup are the things we’re doing for different causes,” DeMaio said. “To eliminate that would not be a good thing because it impacts the causes. The premise of Valley Cup is not just the activities, but also the class causes.”

DeMaio believes that the positive aspects of Valley Cup are still important and that there are no downsides to the event as a whole. The event allows for students to cheer each other on and have a friendly competition between each grade level.

He hopes the students still enjoy Valley Cup and appreciate the community it creates among them.

Ms. Karen Kosch, one of the original creators of Valley Cup, believes there should be natural changes each year to fit the students who go to the school.

“The gym was packed with four groups of classes with their colors having a really upbeat assembly.” said Kosch about the most recent Valley Cup. “The competition during the week had great participation.”

PV senior Troy Peressini believes that the Valley Cup energy is declining. He has noticed that some seniors take Valley Cup as a joke and leave school early.

In addition, many seniors have internships on the day of Valley Cup and have to skip the assembly completely.

Peressini believes the events that are held at Valley Cup are not as inclusive because the council picks the same students to do the activities every year.

“You should be able to do one event a year,” Peressini said. “That should be the maximum.”

However, he still believes that Valley Cup is organized and enjoys it every time it’s held.

“The hope is that we can continue to enjoy Pascack Valley, and show support and high levels of enthusiasm towards one another with all the different activities we do,” DeMaio said.