Last weekend the cheer team traveled to Sandy Creek High School and competed in the Section 3 Cheerleading Sectionals Championship. Sixteen teams from class C-1 converged for the big event which requires teams to complete a “Band” Chant, a “Situational Sideline”, a long cheer and a fight song which is choreographed. With lots of hard work and energy, they beat their rival Hannibal and took first place. The girls have worked very hard this season during practices and competitions leading them higher and higher up each day. On November 9th, they will be participating in the state championships. At this competition, the cheer team competes against one team from each of the nine sections in that participate in the New York State championships. The competition takes place at Hudson Valley community college. However, this is not their first sectionals win. Last year in 2024, the girls had an amazing season, winning first place at many competitions including sectionals, taking them to states last year as well. They are very happy to be competing there again this year and hope to advance to the final round. If you see a coach or anybody on the team in the hallway make sure to congratulate them and wish them good luck this weekend!
Although cheer may seem like just supporting other Chittenango teams, there is much more to the sport. To begin with, the routine itself requires lots of teamwork as well as self awareness and how you do personally. The pressure is on to be your best self while you’re competing while relying on your teammates to do the same. That’s not all though. In most sports, you compete against one team for about two hours. This also allows lots of time to make up points if your team doesn’t do great in the first half of the game. Cheer is much different. Instead of competing against just one team, you compete against multiple teams in each event. Even though competitions take up almost a full day, your team is given only three minutes to give their best performance. That’s it. Only one time to give it your all. There is no time to correct your performance until the next time you compete. What you score in that three minutes is your result for the rest of the day. A question that gets asked often by people who watch the sport is “ Is that all?”. To someone who may not understand the sport or may not have any interest in it, the performance may not seem like a lot. However, there is much more to it than what outsiders see. From choreographing to the changes made during the week to score better next time there is lots of time, effort, and energy that the coaches and athletes put in.
To wrap up – Cheerleading is more than just a simple “ GO BEARS”; the team works hard every day to bring the pep and the games and maximize their performance in competitions.
