How does the school see the cheerleaders? Well if you ask some students they might express that cheering is not a sport, but it is!

If you ask anyone on the football team, or just any guy at IHS, they will tell you that cheerleading is not a sport, but they are wrong.  There are many important factors and athletic components to cheering. You need to be physically fit and able to remember the moves under pressure. It is not something to be underestimated. This is a sport just like every other sport. They may not show up every Friday night to compete against another team, but their determination and stamina is evident when they show up every Friday night to cheer teams on.  In addition to their rigorous schedule, they must compete against many different teams at once, often without the support from their classmates.

          Three Ipswich Senior Cheering Captains, Olivia Leonard, Alex Cayer and Sidney Hardie, were interviewed.

If any of you have gone to one of the IHS cheering competitions, you would be able to tell that their time is consumed with hard work and dedication. They put so much time and effort into their steps and moves.

Dakota Pappas a Senior on the Cheering team, said, “Our routine has been tweaked and perfected so that we could sell it to everyone and steal the hearts of all our judges at the competitions.”

            For those who were at the pep rally during spirit week you got to see the cheerleaders bust a move to their competition routine, Burlesque. That routine was the one that won the team first place in every single competition they were in and second place at State's. 

            As Sidney has said, “We’ve worked extremely hard this season.” 

Alex said, “We competed with the best with what we had and came out on top. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.”

Olivia added, “The only thing I would change was that we didn’t have enough tumbling. If we had more girls who tumbled we would have gotten first at States instead of second, but second place is still AMAZING and I’m so proud of everyone.”

            If you look at how far the girls have gone, you would agree with Sidney when she said “We’ve worked extremely hard this season. But if it wasn’t for our coach who pushed us, we wouldn’t have gotten where we are now.”

            Everyone put so much time and effort into this season, all the girls were dedicated. You could tell how much time was spent on this season just by looking at their trophies.

The team has qualified for Nationals, and they are all so excited!

They had a fundraiser for their trip by having a recycling event, where you could bring a car load of metal and plastic down to the EBSCO parking lot; it was only 30 dollars per car load, and they gained around 2,300 dollars for their trip!  This will insure that they don't have to scramble for money closer to the day of Nationals

           Alex and Olivia both said that they see the team having a good chance at Nationals.

            Sidney added, “I’m hoping that we are one of the top teams there.”

            All three captains agreed that there was plenty of school support at all of their competitions.

Gabby Gauthier, a senior at Ipswich High, said, “They’ve improved so much over the past few years, and have continually gotten first place at almost every competition they’ve competed in. I can see them doing fabulous at Nationals.”

As for Nationals, Alex said that they have a really good opportunity to get first place. She also added, “Yes we had to make changes to the music and other parts for Nationals, but I still believe that we will do well.”

            They have had practices every weekend till they make their way to Nationals on March 3^rd, in the lovely state of Kentucky.

            As a group they have agreed that they wouldn’t have made it this far without their amazing coaches Kristen Almquist and Cara Wilson. 

They are so excited about how far they have made it, and feel that it is a great accomplishment for everyone!

All together there is a lot of anticipation about how the girls are going to do at Nationals, and we should be supporting them no matter what the outcome is.

 Based on their amazing results and their dedication, it is evident that cheerleading is a sport.  It deserves the recognition and the respect given to every other varsity sport.