This year, the varsity and competition cheerleading squads have gotten off to a great start, finding new ways to test their limits, with rigorous camps and a few frustrating practices.Over the summer, there were two cheerleading camps: one in June for all three squads; freshman, junior varsity and varsity. Following was a mandatory camp in July for the competition squad. I attended the second camp, hosted by Spirit Express.I was impressed and surprised at how much our squad has improved. The camp was two days long, and almost all of our time was put into stunting, which is lifting and throwing girls in the air. The constant stunting was exhausting, and took a toll on many of the girls.”After I got done stunting, especially single basing, I had polka dot bruises all over my arms, but it was more than worth it,” said Ashton Frost, a senior at Falcon High School.We learned many advanced stunts and perfected our existing ones. We mastered our easier stunts learned others, including inverted stunts. Our success at camp boosted the team morale and showed how much we can improve this year.I think the whole state squad will agree that our greatest accomplishment was learning and perfecting a pyramid, which used to take months to clean and perform.After camp, we had a short break before school started and then we began with our regular practice schedule. Our Saturday state practices started Aug. 12 and on the first day, we again mastered the pyramid and all of the stunts we attempted.”It felt so great after practice because we had accomplished so much, and I don’t know what the squad is going to practice for the next four months; we already have our stunting down perfect,” said senior Brittney Best.The freshmen and junior varsity squads also have accomplished great things. “I have never seen a freshman squad stunt so well or learn routines so fast; they are definitely going to help our cheer program,” said senior Dana Smith.All three squads are anticipating the season and have high hopes for our state team. After getting eighth place last year, everyone is positive that we will improve this year, especially with the stunting and tumbling we have been working so hard to master.
