Naomi Feng, senior, wakes up to her blaring 5 a.m. alarm on a Saturday morning. She slicks back her hair and does a full face of competition day makeup.
Then, she goes to MHS to gather with the varsity cheer team before heading to Lindbergh High School for their first competition of the season.
The varsity cheer team placed third overall at the regional competition on Saturday, Sept. 21, at Lindbergh High School, and they will continue to compete while working toward qualifying for Universal Cheerleaders Association Nationals in January. Their next competition is State on Nov. 2.
“When we get to the competition, we stretch, then they call us for warm-ups.” Feng said. “We do five minutes of tumbling, five minutes of stunts, then we have some time to go full out. Then, we compete.”
This is Feng’s second year on varsity cheer. She is a captain along with Sydney Vaccaro, senior. Feng said she and her teammates were originally worried about how graduating seniors leaving would affect the program’s success in competition.
“It was a big spot to fill at first,” Feng said.“But we had a lot of higher level skills, so it was really fine.”
Aside from practices six days a week, personal connections with teammates are a large part of the team’s success, Feng said.
“A major factor is team bonding,” Feng said. “A lot of people don’t realize we’re with each other almost 24/7. Just trusting each other is a big factor.”
Events such as going out to dinner together or hanging out as a team allow everyone to develop bonds that allow them to “hit” at their competitions, Feng said.
Ashley Hobbs, head coach, said the team starts preparing for their season at the end of the previous school year.
“We start in the spring, around May,” Hobbs said. “We’ve been working all summer.”
To prepare to compete, the team goes to various clinics and regular practices to ensure safety and to see what skills will be doable for them, Hobbs said.
“We start by going to stunt clinics to learn how to stunt correctly and safely, then get choreography based on what we think we will be able to do by the time of competition,” Hobbs said.
Sophie Hobbs, junior, said applying feedback from the judges helps them prepare for more high stake competitions later in the season.
“We get corrections each competition and then we apply those for Nationals,” Sophie said. “We look at our score sheets and talk about what we need to do better and what we did good.”
