The competition cheer team entered this season as the reigning region champions, but defending their title won’t be easy. Four seniors will lead this year’s group: Ansley Petersen, Camile Jackson, Logan Sarijian, and Sean Taylor. 

“I sure hope I can be seen as a role model because I am a senior now, and I will put so much more time and effort into this season’s team,” Jackson said. “I have to be a good role model because most of the new people have no competition cheer experience, but since they have a lot of strength, the transition from last year’s season to this year will be an easy transition.” 

Junior Charlotte Hodge said that this transition will also require a lot of work with the new girls on the team.

“I wouldn’t necessarily call this a rebuilding year, but I guess you could say because we have a good bunch of people who haven’t ever done comp cheer [that] it takes a bit to get used to it,” she said.

There are five new members: junior Katie Drinan , sophomore Meg Griffin, and freshmen Emma Holmes, Morgan Kesler, and Raven Royter. 

“I do not have any tumbling experience and I did not want to join comp cheer at first, so I was saying I wont be good.” Kelser explained about her hesitation to be on the team. “But [head coach] Ms. Carney kept encouraging me saying, ‘You’re gonna wanna do this, just go.’ The coaches were extremely welcoming.”

 The team usually practices four days a week for two to three hours, where they work on mastering their two minute and 30 second routine. 

“Our coach comes with a checklist of different things to work on and different parts of the routine to focus on,” Hodge explained about their practices. “Once we successfully complete the task written, we check it off and move on to the next part.”

“There are no team captains, but there are four seniors on the squad and they act like team captains. They are super awesome. I love them so much. They help us, they support us, and they support each other. If we accomplish something such as getting the running tumbling down. They will celebrate with us. They will give us pointers to perform our best,” Kesler said.

So far the team has competed in the Dacula Cheer Classic, where they placed second, and in the Lambert Competition, where they placed third. 

“The first competition went really well. First comps are always hard, but we definitely came out strong against some of our hardest competitors,” Hodge said. 

The girls will be competing again next weekend at Stockyard Roundup. They’ll then have one more competition in October before trying to defend their region title on Nov. 9.