When Wareham High School held its first student-teacher kickball game in 2022, the results were rather one-sided.

“The students decimated the teachers,” said English teacher Carolyn Gomes Vieira, “and we were too embarrassed.” 

For this year’s game on Tuesday, May 30, students and teachers played together on two different teams, like they did for the basketball tournament in March. 

“This is all to build community between the teachers and students,” Gomes Vieira said. “A fun way to end the year.”

Wareham Week was unable to interview students due to a lack of parental consent. 

Some of the students playing in the game were graduating seniors. Graduation will take place in Spillane Field on Friday, June 2 at 6:30 p.m.

For those whose memories of elementary school gym class are fuzzy, kickball is basically baseball, but with players kicking a large ball instead of batting a small one.

The students and teachers played by “gym house rules,” meaning no bunting and no “pegging” (throwing the ball at a player’s head). 

“You can’t throw the ball and hit a kid,” Gomes Vieira said. “You can’t do that anymore.”

Gomes Vieira hasn’t played kickball since elementary school, and she didn’t intend to pick it back up on Tuesday. 

Despite an impressive comeback in the final inning from “Team A,” “Team B” won 11-15. 

“Last year, the teachers were a little short on their skills,” said history teacher and Team B member Laura Demaso, “but this year, we were kicking and catching.”

The star of Team B was senior Rakeem Black-Todd. 

“I feared for your life on that one!” Civics teacher and JROTC instructor Matthew Stanton told Demaso after Black-Todd kicked the ball at her. 

Stanton, who was on Team B, played a lot of kickball when he was a young boy.

“I didn’t do as well as the students,” he said. “The students were amazing. I love the energy and the enthusiasm.”