Over 100 freshmen wearing white and red athletic gear descended on Stanford Stadium last night for an enormous game of capture the flag. In the end, it was a close finish between East Campus — sporting red — and West Campus — sporting white. After building a 4-o lead, West Campus held off a surge from the East to capture an 8-7 victory.

Instead of the usual flags, kickballs of varying point values were placed all around the stadium, with West Campus guarding five balls in the north/west part of the stadium, and East Campus protecting another set of five in the south/east part. “Jail zones” were located under the scoreboards at each end of the stadium, with the goal being to get the other team’s ball back across the 50-yard line and score.

“This was truly the brainchild of [Roble Resident Assistant] Daniel Novinson,” said Roble Resident Fellow Kate Chesley. “All the credit should go to him.

“Roble always has a capture the flag game every year, usually against Branner,” she added, “but we decided that it should be an all freshmen event this year and it turns out all the dorms wanted to get involved.”

All dorms with freshmen were invited to participate, so resident upperclassmen joined the Class of 2011 in the split between East Campus (Roble, FroSoCo, Loro, West Lag, Naranja, Gavilan and Mirlo) and West (Trancos, Otero, Burbank, Larkin, Serra, Okada, Soto and Cedro).

The game began with both teams yelling chants at each other from across the stadium. Sporting their team colors, many also used face paint to write dorm names on their faces. Rules were announced over the loudspeakers just before the game started at about 8:30 last night, but even then some freshmen seemed confused.

Many Resident Assistants (RAs) were on hand to explain rules and ensure safety. Dressed in black, individual staff members covered various stations, including the flag locations and jails.

“There were about 30 RAs that were actively involved in helping organize the freshmen come-together,” said Serra RA Kevin Montag ‘08. “The turnout is a little bit lower than we expected, but I think they are filling up the stadium well enough.”

“I’m just trying to make sure people don’t run on the grass,” Montag added, “because the athletics people were worried about the grass being ready for the upcoming game.”

While most of Stanford Stadium was fair game, players were not allowed on the field or the surrounding grassy areas and hills. With that, freshmen and their upperclass dormmates were forced to run around the concourses and tunnels as well as through — and on top of — the many bleachers.

Most freshmen had a difficult time scoring points, as both West and East Campus had formidable defense teams. Tape outlined the safe zone surrounding each kickball, but the areas were heavily fortified with members of the respective team.

“I had to be secretive,” said Roble resident Max Sosna-Spear ‘11, as he stood in the safe zone holding the other team’s ball for about 25 minutes. “I was actually in the bathroom and I slipped out. Someone followed me up to the door of the bathroom, but they didn’t follow me inside. So five minutes later I slipped out and ran into the safe zone, and no one could catch me.”

Immediately after getting to the safe zone, Sosna-Spear called his teammates on his cell phone to let them know he needed help getting the ball to the other side. They were tagged one by one as they tried to get to him.

Because of the many students who were caught — East Campus went the first 40 minutes without a single jailbreak from its team — officials changed the rules mid-game, requiring a two-hand touch to get teammates out.

Toward the end of the night, jails were eliminated; after players were tagged, they simply had to return to their side rather than sit out for a few minutes. And to make things more interesting in the final minutes, all point values were doubled.

With three returns by the East, West Campus’ three-point lead was diminished to just one in the last five minutes.

“I was able to score because my friend and I ran with the ball, passing it to each other,” said Roble resident Khai Tram ‘11, who managed to score three points.

Administrators were pleased by the contest’s outcome.

“I think it would be great if this were to become an annual tradition in the stadium,” said Koren Bakkegard, director of new student programs. “This tradition could not have started with a nicer class; the Class of ‘11 is a great one to kick this off.”

After putting a large effort into the high-stakes game, coordinator Daniel Novinson was satisfied with the night — and the fact that Roble contributed to the West Campus win.

“This is awesome, and this event could not have gone any better,” he said. “I am just incredibly happy that we were able to do this event tonight. In the future, I would love [it] if the freshman class leaders could continue this tradition. I would especially like to see a senior versus freshmen game.”