derides her former New Directions teammates—particularly Finn. He challenges Santana and the other Troubletones to a game of dodgeball. Finn and Santana are the last two people standing, until Santana whips a ball at Finn's face, and wins the game. Despite having won, Santana violently targets Rory (Damian McGinty), and makes his nose bleed. Cheerleading coach Sue (Jane Lynch) starts a campaign against Burt Hummel (Mike O'Malley), her main rival in the election for congress. When Burt's son Kurt (Chris Colfer) accuses her of lying, Sue defends her tactics, and tells Kurt that his own campaign for senior class president is boring and lacks edge. When the presidential candidates make their assembly speeches, Kurt pledges to ban dodgeball, a sport he says is too often used to bully. Rachel (Lea Michele) withdraws her candidacy and urges everyone to vote for Kurt. Rachel later confesses to Kurt that she quit so that he could have something important to put on his college application, and because she missed being his friend. The two make up, and go to work on Kurt's campaign. Mercedes (Amber Riley) is elected president of the Troubletones, and tells Santana that she should play fair against New Directions from now on. Santana makes a rare apology to Finn in the school hallway, but her so-called apology consists of a series of insults. As she walks away, Finn retaliates by telling her to come out of the closet, and calls her a coward for constantly tearing others down while not accepting herself and her relationship with Brittany. A couple of days later, Santana is told by Sue and Burt that the niece of one of their opponents in the election overheard the conversation between her and Finn, and said opponent is about to release an attack ad that criticizes Sue for choosing a lesbian as head cheerleader. Santana runs out of the office in tears, saying that her parents do not yet know she is gay. The episode concludes with the Troubletones' mash-up of Adele songs. The moment the performance ends, Santana jumps down from the stage after seeing Finn whispering something to Rachel, blames Finn for outing her to the world and slaps him in the face. Production "Mash Off" was written by Michael Hitchcock and directed by Eric Stoltz. Principal photography for the episode commenced on October 6, 2011, while the fifth episode, "The First Time" was