Same team, new dream

BY: GRACE S.

Photography Provided By: B. Simmons

The West Jefferson High School cheer squad hosted a cheer competition for the Ohio Heritage Conference on November 3, 2018. Eleven teams competed in two main categories: a Cheer Chant Dance Division and a Fight Song Division. The cheerleaders’ spirits were almost as high as the tumbling was.

AJ Hymiller, a sophomore on the squad said, “Since it’s only a conference competition, it’s just teams that are in our conference, not really like districts or whatever, but it’s just if they do have a competition team this is something they can practice before they go out and compete for real. This is just supposed to be a friendly get-together.”

This was a long day for all of those on the cheer squad. They got to the school around 7 A.M. to finish setting up for the competition. The competition officially started at 9 A.M., but they didn’t perform their fight song until about 1 P.M. The awards were handed out around 3 P.M. The cheerleaders had to stay at the school to clean up all the spirit left behind by the different schools’ competitors, and they were expected back at the school at 5 P.M. for team meal. The school’s playoff game started at 7 P.M. and they were required to be field side cheering on the Riders-resulting in a 15 hour day.

Many dangers were faced while these athletes were on the mats. “For the competitors there’s dangers of getting kicked in the face...With the tumbling you can do your flips and all that, but you can land either on your knees or you can land on your head, you can do all these different things. You can land off the mat and hit the gym floor, so there’s just all these possibilities,” said Hymiller.

Jillian Flowers, a senior on the team who has been cheering since middle school, addressed that while the team has a lot of underclassmen who have never cheered before, “I thought as a group we did better than we usually do.”

West Jefferson, unfortunately, did not end up coming away with a win. Northeastern High School won the Cheer Chant Dance Division and Triad High School won the Fight Song Division. Even though her squad did not win, Flowers felt confident in their performance and said, “I think everything went according to plan.”

Hymiller looks forward to the rest of the squad’s season quoting a team mantra: “Same Team, New Dream”. While the squad does not have a competition team, they are striving to win the league title. This competition was one of the many stepping stones on the path towards reaching their title dream.