–The Teams–

Team: The Annoying Ones

Name: Leslie Baran

Year in School: Junior

Major: Meteorology

What do you bring to the team? “Singing and humor. I am wacky.”

Name: Dave Dellaterza

Year in School: Senior

Major: Communication

What do you bring to the team? “I’m the token gay guy, and I sing more off-key than the other two do.”

Name: Dana Hempel

Year in School: Junior

Major: Corporate communication

What do you bring to the team? “I get so scared that maybe my loud screams will keep everyone away.”

Team: Dong $ack

Name: Steve Kerr

Year in School: Senior

Major: Marketing and economics

What do you bring to the team? “Mad corn-maze and bow-staff skills. Plus, I am the crucialist mack.”

Name: Ben Grigg

Year in School: Senior

Major: Mechanical engineering

What do you bring to the team? “A beard.”

Name: Joe Robinson

Year in School: Senior

Major: Psychology

What do you bring to the team? “I’m going to scare zombies away with my ugly looks.”

Team: Double F

Name: Amber Bindgen

Year in School: Senior

Major: Psychology and English

What do you bring to the team? “I’m the leader.”

Name: Kari Kleckauskas

Year in School: Senior

Major: Math education

What do you bring to the team? “Smiles and a fun time.”

Name: Jesse Hamm

Year in School: Senior

Major: Music

What do you bring to the team? “Speed.”

Name: Geoff Coltman

Year in School: Senior

Major: Business

What do you bring to the team? “Smarts.”

The results

The Annoying Ones didn’t really live up to their name. Unless you consider singing annoying.

What Dana Hempel, Dave Dellaterza and Leslie Baran lacked in cut-throat competitiveness, they made up for in song.

There has to be some sort of entertainment during the 3-mile trek, which consisted of 6,680 steps. (You can thank Baran’s pedometer for the stats.) After all, what better way to warn fellow maze-goers that a team of Weekender racers is coming through than to bellow out a few notes.

It seemed The Annoying Ones didn’t have a true leader, as the head position rotated over the course of the evening. Whoever was most irritated with being lost would assume the role – that is, until somebody else felt they knew best and would claim it for him or herself.

The first and unhaunted portion of the maze caused the team the most amount of trouble. After taking nearly every “first right” possible, back tracking, re-back tracking and re-back tracking again, the team decided to follow the sound of the distant chainsaw.

Yet, the scariest moment of the evening wasn’t courtesy of a masked henchman. It came in the form of Dellaterza’s face-first plunge into the mud from a sniper-like boulder in the middle of a path. But he brushed it off, and the team made its way to the haunted section.

Nobody knew what was in store: especially Hempel.

Just when it seemed she couldn’t scream any louder, the NIU junior proved she could. In fact, one maze-ghost felt so bad after popping out on the trail, she took off her mask, apologized for scaring Hempel so much and gave directions out of the maze.

It didn’t take the team very long to realize they shouldn’t look at haunted scenery, but instead, look away and catch people jumping out of the corn behind them.

But it didn’t matter, for another team had already reached safety. Strangely enough, after the pressure to win was gone, The Annoying Ones chose all the right paths, and made the maze look easy.

-Derek Wright, Weekender Editor End place, 47 min.

Steve Kerr came out of retirement to win a sixth championship last weekend.

But this time it wasn’t for any basketball powerhouse but rather a corn maze juggernaut, team Dong $ack.

Not knowing what they were competing for, the team hit the maze like they were being chased by Oprah after eating the last cream puff at a buffet.

And run they did. From the word “go,” team Dong $ack ran and ran and ran. And for 35 minutes, they did not stop.

“We run, or one of us did in high school or something,” said one of the team members from a distance.

What started out as a search for the end of a corn maze, ending up doubling as a marathon. And even though team Dong $ack didn’t run 26 miles, it seemed like they did.

Dong $ack spent what seemed like an eternity trying to run its way out of the first half of the corn maze.

Up and down the same stretch of rows, the corn kept ushering them in the wrong direction.

Twenty minutes later, after a huge amount of backtracking, the team found itself staring into the mouth of the second half of their journey: the haunted part of the maze.

The second half of the maze held much of the same components as the first, except for the new spooky elements.

“Follow the sound of the chainsaws,” one of the teammates directed as he ran down a dead end.

“My beard says we’re going east,” said Ben Grigg when asked what direction the team was headed.

Whatever direction, it sure wasn’t the right one.

After cutting through what looked like a path, team Dong $ack was confronted by a corn maze monitor who chastised them for not sticking to the path.

But this miscue ended up paying huge dividends in the quest for hot apple cider because the guide pointed a finger and said “now go that way,” and pointed the team to victory.

As the $ack members ran down the instructed path, they found themselves at the haunted graveyard. Inside, a deranged butcher pointed us in the right direction like we had “Corn Maze VIP” tickets.

After making it through the graveyard, the only dead person to be found was the exhausted newspaper reporter as team Dong $ack crossed the finish line.

To celebrate: warm apple cider … oh, the taste of victory.

– Matt Knutson, Weekender Senior Reporter 1st place 36 min.

Love wasn’t enough to propel Double F – friends forever – to success.

The team of two dating couples took off jogging through the corridors, but quickly slowed down when they realized all the paths looked the same. Jesse Hamm and Geoff Coltman tried jumping to see over the rows with no success, so the team started following a group of kids who had a map.

“I feel like I’m in that movie ‘Labyrinth,’” said leader Amber Bindgen, wearing a pink bandanna. She convinced the team to join the competition.

Mud, darkness and ill-placed corn stalks all conspired to keep Double F from winning, and Coltman complained his pants kept falling down.

“We’ve been here before,” said group members at various times, and minor arguments developed among them. Meeting three girls, who had been stuck in the maze for four hours, didn’t help.

Although Kari Kleckauskas had navigated the maze last year, she wasn’t able to recall enough information to lead the way. Double F came to a bridge and into a more open field, but they missed the crucial passage leading to the end of the maze’s first half. The team back-tracked and met up with The Annoying Ones, who seemed just as lost.

Hamm tried dropping kernels to leave a trail, but that didn’t work.

“Find the North Star!” Coltman joked.

After walking back to almost the beginning, they finally returned and discovered the correct path, but 20 minutes had been wasted.

The corn maze’s haunted second half proved less of a challenge. Only somewhat spooked by the chainsaw murderers and animated scarecrows, they passed through the winding ways without too much trouble, although someone yelled at Hamm for lighting a cigarette.

Double F exited the maze 65 minutes after entering, for the last place finish.

“We suck, but I had fun,” Kleckauskas said.

-Jessica King, Assistant Weekender Editor 3rd place, 65 min.