Varsity cheer celebrates their NCS award

The varsity cheer team won the North Coast Section Scholastic Championship Team Award for Fall 2021 in the Sideline Cheer Category. The award goes to the top three teams in each sport with the highest grade point average. Reigning over 176 schools in the North Coast Section, the varsity cheer team achieved a GPA of 3.56. 

“I’m proud of my team and the fact that we all are doing well at school and our sport, both of which can be time-consuming and sometimes difficult,” said senior Brooke Eickmann. “School and cheer can be hard to balance, because cheer sometimes takes up three entire evenings a week.”

Varsity cheer captain Ashley Kim succeeds in school despite her hectic schedule. “During football season I would be at the studio until super late at night making choreography every week and staging formations and it was in that same pattern for three months,” said Kim. “I couldn’t start my homework until 12 a.m. and it honestly ruined my schedule until I found a good routine. My classes this year are really rigorous and it can be really unmotivating but I think the main thing that helped me academically was talking with people in similar classes who had the same struggles.”

Junior Sophie Zhang’s trick to succeeding both academically and in cheer is time management. “At cheer practice, I only focus on cheer and then when I get home, I only focus on school. Once I’m done with my school work then I’ll start thinking about cheer again so that I can get better,” said Zhang. 

The varsity cheerleaders have grand plans beyond cheer. Kim’s goals for the future are an internship in international relations and a summer program. Senior Jennifer Ortiz plans to attend a four-year college majoring in physics or astronomy. 

“I am proud of my team because I know that we all try really hard in school and have strong goals,” said Zhang.