The cheer team is back at it again with taking home the win. Over the weekend, the show cheer team and stunting team finished first in both divisions. In cheer, the show team is the main varsity team while the stunting team is a branched off mini team which solely focuses on the stunting aspect of cheer leading. The journey for the cheer team to first place has not been an easy one, Coach Houg says, “We had a lot of setbacks going into it this year.”

The team started off with seventeen girls, one being an alternative meaning only sixteen would compete. However, throwing two injuries into the mix, the team competed with only fourteen.

In the cheer world, the separation among school cheer teams works through the division of D-1 and D-2 along with large and small. D-1 is the population of the overall school; Perry having over 3000 students makes our cheer team D-1. After that, the number of girls’ on the team itself is put into account, 17 people and higher is considered large while 16 and lower is small. With this, the show team is in the D-1 small.

Last year, the team consisted of twenty girls making it a large team, this year the number dropped by six making it small. Despite this, Coach Houg persevered, “I think we’ve found a groove and we try to stay really consistent at our practices, and they all come wanting to be productive.”

The show cheer scored an overall 89.92, a good average.

The stunting team, on the other hand, has had a more interesting past couple of years. This was the first year the stunting team made the top three, let alone taking first place.

Adri Encinas, a cheerleader on the stunting team says, “For us, it was mostly hitting.”

The stunting team was the only team to hit out of their entire division. Adri also adds that, “throughout the season, there were multiple times where somebody was sick and Taylor O’Brien on Varsity would fill in, she really helped us a lot.”

The stunting team scored incredibly well, taking an overall score of 90.0.

Even with this victory, the cheer team is not finished yet, next weekend is nationals and should they do well, the cheer team will then qualify for finals where they are optimistic of branching into the top three.