Not all of the students who lined up to ride the “spirit bus” to the state championship soccer game Nov. 20 got the ride the SGA promised.

Approximately 50 students squeezed onto the bus at around 5:15 p.m. However, some students who arrived as early as ten minutes before the suggested arrival time of 5 p.m. did not receive tickets to board the bus.

“My friend, who was my back-up in case we didn’t get on the bus, got on the bus,” junior Mariana Robertson said. “I had to find a ride with someone I didn’t know. They should have had two buses. I definitely would have paid if they had asked me to.”

The SGA rented a bus using the same procedure that teachers use to reserve buses for field trips. When renting spirit buses in the past, few students actually showed up for a ride, so the administration did not feel the need to rent more than one bus this year.

“Anytime we’ve done this in the past, it didn’t fly,” assistant principal Jennifer Webster said. “But I think that the distance and the timing-that it was rush hour and driving to Baltimore-made people really want to ride the spirit bus as opposed to drive, like they would typically do.”

After the SGA realized that an unusual number of students were considering riding the bus, it was too late to order a second one. As a result, the departure of the bus left about a third of the students scrambling and bargaining for rides.

“I was so upset that I could not get on the spirit bus,” junior Danielle Newsham said. “I am not allowed to drive to Baltimore at night by myself. My friends got on the bus, but I didn’t so I had to get a ride with somebody who I didn’t know.”

In the future, the SGA could ask students to sign-up in advance to determine the number of buses needed or charge a small fee to ensure students who can’t get rides can get to the game, Webster said.

“The idea is to make it easier and safer to go to the game,” she said. “Not every parent wants to let their child drive to Baltimore in rush hour.”

Although the SGA realized the bus might fill up, they advertised the spirit bus as an option for students who couldn’t drive to the game.

“They put an ad on the TV and build it up at the pep rally,” Newsham said. “They wanted everyone to come, but if you want everyone to come you have to provide more transportation. I don’t know why that didn’t occur to them.”

However, Webster says she still considers the SGA’s effort a success.

“In the future, I think we would order more buses,” she said. “It speaks very highly of the spirit at the school right now that [students] wanted the communal aspect of riding the bus together. But ideally you could take everyone who wanted to go.”