Spirit Night 2026

By Jonah Casel ‘27 (Reporter)

If you somehow missed the signs scattered across campus, the numerous Instagram posts, and the general buzz across the student body, Spirit Night occurred on Friday, January 23, 2026. Spirit Night is the biggest event across the winter athletic season at Friends’ Central, and this year it did not disappoint. 5:30 on Friday marked the official start of the festivities, but even up to an hour before then, the home stands were blanketed by white shirts in a scene that resembled the snow that would fall later that weekend. After a dual celebration of Zya Small ‘27’s thousandth Friends’ Central point and Vinny Simpson’s hundredth career coaching win, the girls' basketball game was set to begin in front of the awaiting fans. Immediately, the match was out of reach for Germantown Friends’ School. After the first quarter, the Phoenix had held the Tigers to one basket, and by halftime, the starters had already done enough to clinch the victory. Sheer dominance is the only fitting description of the absolute athletic annihilation that went down in the Shimada Gymnasium between the hours of 5:00 and 7:00. The final score was 65-17, but a viewer of the game, without looking at the scoreboard, would never have known that Germantown Friends scored even that many points.

Spirits were high after the first game of the night, and the second game commenced soon after. If it was even possible, the second game outshined the first in terms of highlight-worthy moments. Not only did Patrese Feamster ‘27 celebrate his thousandth Friends’ Central varsity point before the game, but he also scored a whopping twenty-nine points and started the game 6-for-6 from the field. The first half was a Harlem Globetrotters-esque show for the crowd, and it was easy to tell that the players were having fun out on the floor. Not every shot hit its target, but getting the win felt like a wide-open layup from this viewer’s perspective. Feamster had twenty-four of his twenty-nine total points in the first half, but he was not the only one putting numbers up on the scoreboard. With mere seconds left on the clock in the second quarter, Oben Mokonchu ‘27 took the ball in his hands and flew to the hoop for a spectacular slam dunk as time expired. One of Mokonchu’s junior classmates and a spectator at Spirit Night, Ari Barak ‘27, was in complete awe of this dunk, saying, “That just put the nail in the coffin!” Barak was correct, as the Tigers were not able to scrap together a comeback, and the Phoenix put on cruise control for the victory. Friends’ Central’s first Spirit Night after the notorious canceled game due to slippery floors was an enormous success, and a spectacle that viewers will likely tell their grandchildren about.

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