Working Closer and Closer to Nationals
Senior Carly Snellen cheering during a performance. The cheer team had a competition Jan. 7. “I felt great about what we put on the floor because we finally hit a lot of the skills we had been struggling with for the past few weeks,” Snellen said. Photo Credit: Natalie McGarry
Practice makes perfect.
The cheer team had an exhibition performance on Jan. 7.
In the team’s performance, they were not socred because they were an exhibition. The goal of this performance was to make sure the team was prepared for what was coming next. Nationals is a month away and the cheer team wants to make sure they’re ready.
The team only performed at the competition as an exhibition because there were no other cheer teams in their division to compete against. The team uses these types of competitions as practice performances before they have their next big competition. “We had a lot of pressure to do good in front of an audience that had not seen us since State so it was pretty nerve-wracking,” senior Carly Snellen said. Doing as many performances as they can in front of a crowd is important for the team, especially during this time in the season.
An exhibition performance means the team was able to perform but they did not get judged over their routine since they had no one to compete against. “This was not a big competition for us in particular but it was still extremely important for us. We had been having a rough few weeks and really needed a good performance to help us gain confidence in the skills we’re doing in the routine for Nationals,” Snellen said. The goal of this performance was to make sure the routine was good in front of a crowd and close to ready for their next big competition coming up.
Nationals is the main goal for most cheer teams and what every competitive cheer season ends with. “We have been preparing for Nationals by lots and lots of full outs. We have really focused on our cheer the past few days too, to really make it engaging and precise. We are in one of the toughest divisions this year while we hold the title of it from Bullitt East winning last year so there are many teams practicing not to win but to beat us, that’s where we’ve really had to focus on what we can do to be the best versions of ourselves and keep the title in our name,” Snellen said.
The team’s next competition performance will be on Jan. 21 at Bullitt East.
