The school’s cheer team has new plans for next season. Instead of two team, JV and varsity, there will be two teams called blue and silver.

“Silver is less dedicated, less time-consuming and lower skills, while blue is higher skills, practices three to four times a week and blue won’t cheer at games as much as silver,” freshman Reese Ransom said.

Sophomore Chloe Marrs said the reason for the change stems from the schedule mixup.

“This past season was our first year with a competitive team. Most competitive cheerleaders were also on the varsity sideline team which had a conflicting schedule,” she said. “It was a lot of work for people who did both teams. It was very hard on our coach, so it was decided that we would have the sideline team separate from the competition team.”

Ransom said those who do competitive cheer need to put all of their focus into it so they can go further in the competition next year.

“It’s changing so the competition team can grow more and progress,” she said. “If the competition team also had to cheer at games like last year we get behind and can’t focus on nationals and our routine as much, but next year we can focus on winning and getting higher stunts.”

Marrs approves of the switch.

I personally think this change is going to benefit everyone,” she said. “I think most of my teammates would agree. It is less stress on Coach [Kaitlyn] Hoskins, it gives competition cheerleaders a break in a way, and it gives the sideline cheerleaders more attention so they can continue to improve as well.”

The blue team will be made up of members from this year’s competition squad, and the silver team will cheer at games and school events.

“It’s different from last year because last year we had a varsity team, and a JV team and a competition team, mostly middle-schoolers and ninth graders were on JV and upperclassmen were on varsity,” Ransom said.  “But next year, middle-schoolers can be on the blue team if they’re dedicated. The upperclassmen who can’t commit to competition, can still cheer for the silver team.”

Ransom said she likes these new teams because she is able to focus on competition cheer.

“Having these two teams, I feel like it opens up more opportunities for the girls who can’t give all their time to cheer,” she said.

By Keira Lee