On Sunday, January 11, the Lincoln East competition cheer team made the trip over to Standing Bear Highschool to compete in the Heartland Championships. There, the team did two performances, Game Day and Non-Tumbling. The Spartan cheer squad walked in the gym with determination, they were going for gold.
Highschool cheer is a unique sport, some people think all it consists of is waving pom-poms around saying “go team” but there’s so much more to it. Not only do the Lincoln East cheerleaders hype up the crowds during your favorite games, they also have their own competitions to attend.
“We have so many practices, early in the morning and late at night,” senior Addison Shreve said. “Lots of the time our work goes unnoticed and we don’t get as much recognition.”
All the work is put toward the competition season, which begins late first semester. Both routines are created to take the Spartans to a state championship, but there’s a lot of criteria that needs to be met. The judging for cheer competitions is pretty unique, each team is evaluated on a 100 point system. 35 of those points go toward the cheer section, and 65 points go toward the music sections. For the non-tumbling routine, the cheer teams are judged based on the following categories: crowd leading, jumps, formation, dance, and overall impression.
As Sunday arrived, the girls put on their winning smiles and cheered their loudest. The Game Day performance was a hit! The crowd was cheering, and the girls were overjoyed, but they knew they had even more to give as the Non-Tumbling performance was creeping closer and closer.
The crowd watched in anticipation as Lincoln East cheer was announced and ran to their starting positions. As the routine began, everyone in the gym knew they had a winning contender in front of their eyes. With a final cheer, the girls finished and scurried off with their signs. Now was time for the hardest part, the wait to see who will take home the title.
In the end the East cheerleaders got 3rd in the Game Day performance, 1st in the non-tumbling performance and were the overall class A champions! Shreve even got runner up for Heartland Championships Nebraska cheer athlete of the year.
“During practice we really focused on things we wanted to improve on,” sophomore Chloe Voog said. “We put in a lot of effort and practiced really hard to win.”
Voog herself has been very dedicated to the sport since last year as a freshman, she has worked so hard to be a part of the competition team and help bring home the hardware for East.
“I was an alternate for the team last year as a freshman,” Voog said. “I am excited to be an upperclassman next year and to continue to help out the underclassmen who join cheer.”
Cheerleading isn’t just jumping up and down and entertaining a crowd but it’s so much more. It’s a sport just like any other at East and it creates bonds just as strong as the ones you see in basketball or football.
“This is only my second year doing cheer,” Shreve said. “I will miss everything about this team, since I only did it for two years, I’m sad I missed out on the experiences doing it all four years. I know that when I graduate I will not only miss cheer but the people I met on cheer as well.”
From the sidelines to center stage, cheerleaders can do it all. After winning the Heartland Championships, these girls are ready to bring home the real hardware at state, and prove once again that they deserve the spotlight just as much as any other sport at East.
