With the winter sports season coming to a close, tears are shed and hugs are shared as graduating seniors battle it out one last time on their home court. But win or lose, emotions run, as that is the last time many of them will wear their high school jerseys.

In the past couple of weeks, most winter sports teams wrapped up their season with a senior night, which is typically the team’s last home game. Each team hosts their own senior night as a way of celebrating and honoring the graduating members of their community.

For many teams, teammates make a poster for every senior, decorating it with drawings and pictures to commemorate their time with the team, and conveying the bittersweet emotions of their teammates as the end of their time together approaches.

Sophomore Casey McCarthy said the girls varsity hockey team’s (GVH) senior night is a very important day for everyone and the seniors will have mixed emotions when they see their posters hanging on the wall.

“The seniors don’t know who’s been assigned to make their poster, so I think they’ll be really excited when they find that out. Some of them will be happy, but some of them will be very emotional. It’s their last year playing hockey for the high school and a lot of them won’t play anymore in the future,” McCarthy said.

Teams spend time before the game getting ready for the festivities by hanging up posters and decorating their courts. Younger teammates also use this time to set up the senior gifts.

Junior Gigi McMahon said the girls varsity basketball team’s (GVB) senior night is always very festive and upbeat. The team gives each senior a gift bag along with their poster, and everyone has a fun time during the senior gift reveals.

“Every senior’s bag is individualized, they each get a gift, and we also put some merch in there for them. They have planned senior nights in the past, so they know a decent amount about how this works, but the gifts are always a surprise,” McMahon said.

Senior night is a long-standing tradition at the high school, and is highly anticipated by a lot of teams. According to boys varsity swim and dive (BVSD) coach Robin Ross, their senior night was unfortunately canceled by the opposing team, so they ended up having a fun mock meet by themselves instead.

“We still presented our seniors with their posters and we gave each of them a rose. The juniors gave a little speech about each of the seniors, and at the end of the meet we all had some cupcakes. It was still a really fun time,” Ross said.

The funding for senior night varies for every team. Some teams use the money they’ve raised from fundraisers earlier in the year, and others are funded by parents or the team members themselves.

Similarly, Ross said the majority of the funding for their festivities was provided by the swimmers.

“The boys paid for the roses, I paid for the cupcakes and I just contacted the athletic director about splitting the cost of trophies and senior gifts,” Ross said.

According to GVH sophomore Izzy Paes, senior night can be one of the most emotional times of the season, but is a great time for everyone to come together and celebrate everything the seniors have done for the team.

“I just want the seniors to know that we’re going to miss them,” Paes said. “Honestly a lot of us are going to start crying. Senior night can be really sad, because it’s so hard to see them go.”