Give Me a B...

Go Badgers! By Robert Lavala

The squad of cheerleaders at the Bonners Ferry High School plays an important part in school pride and motivation for the players on the field as well as for the community at large. These dedicated young women are athletes in their own right as they compete in regional and national competitions each year.

The group that currently cheers has been together since May of 2014, and some of the girls on the squad have cheered together for three or more years.

Practice is an important part of what these girls do, and they get together two days a week for nearly two hours each day. Speaking with a representative of the cheer team, she said that the practice was about to increase to three days per week. With the acrobatic moves they perform, it is no wonder that a lot of practice is mandatory as serious injury could result in a miscalculation when throwing one of their teammates into the air.

Veronica McDonald, a member of the cheer team, said, “I think that the cheerleaders have a good impact in the players. We try to pump them up as much as we can. And the crowd... I think that we try to get them as excited as possible. I think that the cheerleaders have a big part in making the Friday night varsity football games the best they can be.”

According to McDonald the cheerleading competitions are “just like other school sports.” She went on to explain the four different parts in a cheer competition:

· Pom routine - a minute-long dance that uses pom poms.

· Show routine - a two and a half minute long dance. You have a one-minute cheer within the dance and the other minute and a half is dancing and stunting).

· Sideline routine - a one-minute cheer with no stunts or dancing.

· Individual stunt group - a group of five girls perform a one minute routine that shows the stunts that the team can do.

Speaking about last year, she went on to say, “Last year our team placed first in the show routine and second in the Pom routine and the individual stunt group. Each team does not have to compete in each part. We decided to focus on just those three. Our Districts last year were in Moscow at the University of Idaho. We took all the routines to State in Boise. We did not place at State, but we had an amazing experience. Our hopes for this year are to place first in all of the routines that we do at Districts and we hope to place at State.”

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