On Wednesday, April 12, Hollis Brookline High School hosted their annual Seatbelt Challenge. Outside of the back lobby, an old police car was parked and used for the competition.

In the seat belt challenge, four people sit in the police car with their seatbelts on. When SRO Officer Bergeron blows the whistle, everyone unbuckles, jumps out of the car, and runs to the next door, gets in, and buckles his or her seat belt again. Once everyone is buckled, the whistle is blown again, and the process is continued until the players get back to their original seats. This process is timed, and the team with the lowest time wins. The winners from HB were seniors Kris Johnson, Colin Loftus, Nick Fothergill, and Sam Hall. This team will be moving on to the state round, competing against other schools around New Hampshire. The states tournament will be held at NHTI.

The winning team worked really hard to secure their winning position. Nick Fothergill ‘17 said that he is “expecting nothing less than a victory up at NHTI.”

This group of four decided to add a large coaching staff of Evan Sutton ‘17, Dan Leone ‘18, Jack Macleod ‘17, and Jeremiah Jacob ‘17 to help them along the way. Hall said, “I want to give a big shout out to our coaching staff, they got us through, and helped us out greatly. Amazing things are about to happen with us. #RefusetoLose”

The team didn’t just wing this event; they trained heavily for it. “We went to winter skill sessions with our coach, and [we did] some weight room training. We practiced pulling, buckling, and getting low around the corners,” said Colin Loftus ‘17.

The competition was a very close one. The team that took second lost by just a matter of a few seconds. Stephen Giaconia ‘17, a member of the second place team, said, “Mental errors really took over in the last few rounds, costing us the loss.”