Q: How does this season compared to others from your career?

A: We are now getting the full high school experience, as opposed to just doing it for WJW. It is more fun in a way because it’s actually high school and there are more people that come to the games, and there’s people other than your family that you want to impress. There’s also more cheers and skill sets.

Q: Would you say there is more pressure?

A: Yeah, for sure. It’s just weird since we don’t have just our parents anymore [watching us cheer]. It’s fun that your friends can come and support you now and it makes you feel part of the high school.

Q: What is it like being the captain?

A: It’s fun because we can have a say in things and help keep [the other girls] on task and tell them what they need to do and improve on. Sometimes the team’s not cooperating and it feels good to put them in their place, so we can all be the best we can be together.

Q: How are you preparing for the Quarry Bowl halftime?

A: We have a morning practice this week at 7 and we are working really hard together and if you talk you have to go take a lap, so I think that helps determine people to try and not talk and hit their stunts, and to work really hard so we can look better than Rocklin. It’s not necessarily about that, but it feels good to show that we worked hard.

Q: What do you look forward to the most about cheer?

A: I look forward the most to sidelines and actually performing. Halftime is so much fun because it’s like even during cheer and football they are still splitting attention, even if it’s during a time-out or something. During halftime we have our special moment so everything is on us.

Q: What does the team do to get closer?

A: We try to do a lot of bonding activities. A lot of times before practice someone will be like, ‘Okay I’m going to Taco Bell. So if you want to hang out we can all hang out. I feel like in the beginning of the year we were like really segregated, but now, we are growing closer as a family. Now we hang out outside of cheer because we have grown closer as a family.

Q: Is there anything else you want the readers to know?

A: We put in a lot of hard work for the spectators and the football players and it feels nice when our stunts hit and the crowd gets pumped up. It’s a really good feeling.

by Alexis Alexander, Kimberly Carmona, Katerina Lomba, Salvatore Martinez and Kathryn Quaranta