Poms & Cheer teams final performance at tonight’s senior night

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Halle Douglass, Staff Writer

Tonight marks the last regular season home football game. But not only that, it’s the last performances we will see this year from both the pom and cheer teams before the head into their competition seasons. Finally, it’s a time we get to honor the seniors from those teams and their hard work and dedication over the years. 

On the field tonight, we will honor eight seniors from the poms team and five from the cheer team. All of which will be striking their last pose under the bright varsity field lights come halftime. 

For the poms team, football season and competition season are much different, and as the team head into competition season, senior captain Lilly Neil explains what football season is. 

“It’s a little more laid back compared to competing during the winter season, but we still push ourselves and work hard,” she said. 

Their hard work definitely doesn’t go unnoticed as they manage to choreograph, learn and perfect a dance merely in the span of a week. The poms squad performs at every home football game which sometimes results in only giving them four days to get the performance down. 

Senior captain Ava Manelis explains all of the hard work that goes into the performances.

“It gets a little stressful as we usually learn the dances in two days and then clean them for two days before performing the following night,” she said. “But my teams amazing so they can always pull it off.”

For football season, the poms team mixes together their own music and choreographs their dances all themselves. They split their team up into groups of about four or five girls, and each group is responsible to create a dance and teach their team it for their respective week. 

“It’s so fun getting to see everyone on the team make unique dances and step up as leaders to teach them,” said Manelis.

This year, the poms team has had four performances, with their fifth and final being tonight. Although it won’t be the seniors last time performing, it will be the last time that they step out onto the turf and under the bright lights. 

Seniors:

Lilly Neil (Captain)

Ava Manelis (Captain)

Marissa Giangorgi (Captain)

Caroline Allard

Lauren Plante

Lillia Simiek 

Lucy Surkamer

Olivia Elsasser

“I feel like I really couldn’t ask for a better group of seniors. Every single one of them is so incredibly kind and supportive but also so hardworking and determined. They make me want to better myself everyday to try to become just half the person that any of them are,” junior team member Mary Considine said. “Each of them bring so much light and happiness everywhere they go. I’ll miss them so much next year.”

The Varsity Cheer team has also had a very successful football season. They rallied the crowds and put on some awe dropping halftime performances. 

The cheer squad has various cheers that they chant all throughout the football game that keep not only the student section loud, but to provide motivation to the football team out on the field. 

Their various tricks help keep the crowd engaged. A classic is when Maggie Bires, senior and captain of the team, steps up and completes a perfect back tuck. The student section chants her name in hopes of her doing this iconic flip about a few times each game. 

“I will miss the home games most because cheering on the field under the Friday night lights is one of the best feelings I have ever experienced,” Bires said. 

Although she will miss Friday night lights, her cheer career does not end tonight. Competition season is on the rise and is much different than football season. 

“Football season is a lot less intense than competition season because we know we aren’t getting judged on our routines. For competition season, the season starts out with a new choreographer coming and putting together a routine for us,” Bires said. “It normally takes two-six hour practices to come up with this routine and then we have about a month to ‘clean’ it before we actually have to perform on stage.”

Competition season gives the team a chance to actually compete for a panel of judges. But that does not mean the cheer team didn’t put in a lot of hours into their football season performances. 

In past years, cheer performed during halftime at the homecoming football game and during the pink out/senior night game. However, this year the pink out and senior night football games were separated into two different nights, which gave the team the opportunity to perform at three games. 

The process of creating these performances is not easy and a lot of preparation is involved on behalf of the whole team. 

“The homecoming routine is made by an actual choreographer that we have come to the school over the summer because this is our biggest routine of the fall season. We spend a lot of time perfecting it,” Bires said. 

As for the other two routines, the seniors are in charge of choreographing and teaching the routine to the rest of the team. 

Bires explained to me that for each routine, there are five different parts: jumps, tumbling, quads (individual stunts), pyramid (group stunts), and the dance. 

“To make it easier for ourselves, we split up and each come up with one of these sections by ourselves. We then explain our ideas for each and everyone adds their input so we can modify our routine to make it as perfect as we can,” Bires said. 

The five seniors played a key role in the success of the cheer team’s performance this season and all will be recognized tonight. 

Seniors:

Allie Lotts (Captain)

Ashlyn Bloom (Captain)

Lily Laufenberg

Maggie Bires (Captain)

Margaret Matson

These five seniors left a big impact on their teammates and will be missed next year.

“We’re all going to be really upset to see our seniors go, but it’ll be exciting to see all their hard work pay off in the routine they choreographed for their last performance,” junior team member Daisy Connery said. “We will miss all their constant encouragement during hard practices and commitment to the team.”

Both teams have been a blast to watch this season and we wish them the best of luck in the winter during their competition seasons.