They made it! But honestly, did you ever doubt them?

Yvonne Willey (sophomore-international business) and Cheryl "Chuckie" Antonilli (senior-marketing) teamed up to support the kids in the Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon this weekend, representing Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, 10 Wolf Hall.

At 6 Friday evening, one hour before the start of the marathon, there was an infectious buzz in White Building. The voices of Willey and Antonilli collided in breathless enthusiasm.

"This is totally exciting," Antonilli gasped, looking around at swarms of T-shirted and sneakered soon-to-be dance partners.

"I tried to take a nap today and it didn't work. We can't even sit down!" Willey said.

As the countdown continued, Willey and Antonilli sat with other Thetas directly in front of the stage, posing for a series of group photos, and generally having fits.

"I just want it to start!" Antonilli screeched.

As the overall marathon commitee boarded the stage for the kickoff, Willey pushed herself up from the ground, saying, "I can't believe we're not going to sit down for the next 48 hours!"

The entire temporary population of the White Building screamed, "Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one!" and the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" started Willey, Antonilli and friends into a ring dance, contributing to the floor-shaking zaniness.

More than 12 hours later, at 8 a.m. Saturday, Willey was committed to an intense four-square game.

"She's been playing that all night," Antonilli said, tossing up a fluorescent purple Nerf ball. "It's getting really competitive."

"I'm a little hyper right now, so bear with me -- I just got my second wind," said Willey, steeled by a recent clothing change and breakfast break.

Breakfast was, in a word, edible. "I had half a bagel," Antonilli said. "But did you see the sausage? Awful looking. And tasting? Ugh."

"But I'm doing good, I've got my football and that's all I care about," said Antonilli. "I think I've played with almost every ball in this place," she said, giggling at the fun someone could have with that comment.

"You can tell it's still dark out, really early, because the stands are so empty," Antonilli said, making her disorientation obvious. It was 10 a.m.

At 3:15 p.m., acoustic duo Koehler Bay was strumming away on stage and Willey's second wind had come and gone.

"I'm a little more tired than before. I've got to keep my mind on something so it doesn't go flying around. Your eyes just follow stuff around the room like wooooo . . ." she said, googling her eyes for a more accurate description of brain warp.

Antonilli had meanwhile traded in her Nerf for a neon-yellow tennis ball.

"I told you I don't feel complete without one!"she laughed, deftly catching an incoming pass.

Willey took five from four-square, a game in which dancers hit a ball to each other, to comment on the odors of the gym. "It's really muggy and it smells too -- I guess like people standing in a room for 24 hours," she grimaced.

The two had just been visited by their assigned morale person, a position they've both filled in past marathons. Antonilli has been a morale person twice. "Morale people are really good," she said. Willey interrupted, saying "They can be helpful, but they can also get annoying if they're too bubbly."

The wee hours of the morning brought side-effects often sought after by chemical means.

"A couple people came up to me, like 'Is the room moving?' " said a lucid Willey at 4 a.m.

"The worst is probably the smell," Willey said, referring to the half-air, half-baby powder cloud engulfing the dancers. "They went around and opened all the doors before -- I took the deepest breath and it was like breathing pure oxygen. "

Twelve hours passed, and at 4 p.m. Sunday, Willey admitted, "I've slowed down a little bit . . . OK, a lot."

"This morning I babbled a little. About dogs or something. Weird, uh . . . weird, uh, lines in songs that kind of made me screwed up, something about 'dog eat dog' something." Oh, OK, that seemed pretty clear.

"When you talk to people you didn't know if they knew what you were saying. I wasn't sure if people can see me. Know what I mean?" Gotcha.

Antonilli, without a ball in sight, was front row center for the Stolyn Hours show, standing on a foam foot mat.

"When the families and the kids got up on stage to thank us, I was bawling," Antonilli said, clapping her hands to "Take A Walk On The Wild Side." "I got really low this morning, I couldn't understand anything that was going on."

T-minus 10 minutes found the dancers coiled arm over arm in circles, swaying to a series of sentimental tunes dedicated to the families, the kids and the dancers themselves. At last, "Stop" by Erasure came on, signaling the final line dance, and bedtime for 544 human shells.

Antonilli and Willey embraced each other, shedding tears of sadness, exhaustion and relief. Not to mention pride.

"Until the countdown, I didn't fully realize that I had done it," Willey said, still a little weepy.

"Unless you experience it for yourself, you could never know how this feels," Antonilli said. "This is really special to me."

And? What's the first thing they wanted to do? No, silly, not sleep.

"Shower!"