Everyone is wondering what will happen this Friday night at Fishbowl 2022. If you don’t know, “Fishbowl” is a football game played between the Peninsula and Gig Harbor High School’s rival football teams. Fishbowl is a long-standing tradition and has been played at the beginning of every school year. For the last six years, Peninsula has been on a winning streak against Gig Harbor!

In the week leading up to Fishbowl, we have a tradition of giving back to the community. This tradition that we call “Food Bowl” is a fundraiser that collects food for “Backpacks 4 Kids”, and helps provide food for over 500 kids in the Peninsula School District. Both PHS and GHHS participate in food donations during the week of Fishbowl, and it is considered to be a friendly competition between the two high schools. Whichever school donates the most food receives the coveted Food Bowl trophy. While both schools want to win the trophy,  the end goal is to help as many families as possible. Now that you understand some of the backgrounds of Foodbowl and Fish Bowl, let’s move on to what players and coaches say about Fishbowl.

 Aiden Lester is a Senior at Peninsula High School and this is what he had to say about their football season so far: “[We] started the first week off a little rough, lost by two, but we bounced back against Kentwood.” Lester has been playing football since the third grade and so far “feels great” about Peninsula’s current football team. He went on to talk about this year’s Fishbowl and said “I think we will come out strong with the emotions we have in our team.” Lester can’t wait to play in this year’s Fishbowl and both high schools can’t wait to watch.

The school’s head coach and athletic director, Ross Filkins, said that “as long as we continue to improve this could be one of the strongest teams that we’ve ever had at Peninsula.” This is Coach Filkins’ 28th year at Peninsula High School and feels that this year’s football team has “improved steadily every single day that we take the field.” This year’s football season started on August 17th, but many players do other sports to keep their strength and ability up the entire year. As Coach Filkins put it “our kids are motivated to work year-round to prepare for games like this.” He believes that this year’s Fishbowl will be “awesome” and wishes that “every kid that has the courage to play football could experience a big game like this.” 

Everybody will be on the edge of their seats this Friday night at the 2022 Fishbowl! Show as much school spirit as possible while still being respectful to everyone involved. Remember that this is only possible through the hard work of all of the football players, coaches, volunteers, and everybody else involved with making this football game happen. Have a fun time making memories at the annual Fishbowl and GO HAWKS!

Photo Credit: David Takehara