By Kendall Albrecht
(As of October 4)
As football season continues, both JV and varsity cheer practice exiting halftime routines to perform at upcoming games, including homecoming. While the dance comes closer, JV and varsity work together to create a collaborative performance to display at the homecoming rally. The team also practices new skills to exhibit in the future at football games as well as competitions.
The competitive team feels pressure with the first competition coming up this weekend. On October 9th at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, Black team, hoping to qualify for nationals, will compete with their two-and-a-half-minute routine consisting of tumbling, stunting, cheering, and dancing for the judges. Each team must obtain a certain score in order to qualify for nationals. While Black Team strives for their USA national’s bid, Red Team preforms for exhibition only in order to get practice completing their routine in a competition setting. Red team, competing in the UCA division, hopes to eventually qualify for a nationals event taking place in Flordia. Black and Red team alike continue to work hard at daily practices to clean up their routines in the time crunch before the first competition.
After the Santa Cruz competition, both teams will work on adding difficulty and new skills to their routines for future competitions. Red Team competes again in Fresno on November 6th and Black team in Folsom November 13. The same routines from the October 9th competition will remain, but coaches will task the athletes with adding new skills and improving the routines during the practices leading up the competitions.