The varsity cheer team’s Feb. 4 senior night was going to be the last regular-season home game for the basketball team and was intended to honor the senior cheerleaders during their final days on the team. But the celebration was canceled due to a COVID-19 outbreak that affected the cheer team and other students.

“I’m pretty upset that senior night got canceled,” senior Zoey Tegland said. “It was a pretty big deal and I knew we were all pretty excited.”

Tegland’s disappointment is shared by others on the team, including sophomore Audrey Dohmen.

“The rest of the team was looking forward to [senior night] also,” Dohmen said. “Even though it is not our night, we wanted to honor our seniors for the very last time. All of the other sports did [a senior night], so were just excited that it was our night.”

The team plans to make alternate plans to honor the seniors. But they said it won’t be what their seniors had expected.

“The new plan is to hopefully try and host something in the gym and show off our dances and skills and invite people to be able to watch us and attend and still hold a senior night there,” Tegland said. “It’s not going to be the same, but I think we are fortunate to have this opportunity. 

Dohmen said she believes the team followed COVID-19 safety measures and protocols to ensure the team wouldn’t quarantine themselves.

“Honestly, we did everything we could to stay safe,” Dohmen said. “We all wore our masks and took our temperature before we got together. But what the cheerleaders do out of school does affect everything else. I don’t know if they went out or not. It takes the whole team to make sure we don’t quarantine.”