I’m really happy with the way things have gone this year,” commented Ashley Wagner with a smile, “At the beginning of the year I was really skeptical of how we would do.” The team had eight sophomores and two freshmen cheerleaders, enough inexperience to make returning squad members nervous. “We spent a lot of time working on really simple stuff,” began Nicki McClelland, “I was really afraid of how the season would turn out.”

Obviously though, with a third-place finish in the Can-Am Regionals, a win in the very competitive Holiday Classic Invitational Competition at NC State and a NCHSAA Cheerleading State Championship under their belts, the fears were unfounded. Behind the success was a great deal of hard work. “Sometimes it can get really tense when it’s 9 pm, we’ve been practicing since the end of school and we still can’t get something right,” acknowledged Ashley Moura. “But when we won the Holiday Classic and especially State Championships, it was an incredible feeling.” “We’ve come so far this year,” Jordan Rosado agreed.

Emily Parisher had a theory as to the origins of some of the team’s triumphs. “It’s true that success can be found in failure. Because we didn’t get first at Can-Am, we really wanted to win the Holiday Classic. After that win, we knew we could do it. We knew we could hit the routine and win at State’s.” Vanessa Pickett thought it was the performance material that really helped “We learned the routine so far ahead of time. And we had done it at a lot of games, so it wasn’t as much pressure just to be doing it in front of a crowd,” opined Pickett. Nicole Peace echoed the sentiment and said, “It was really beneficial to be so familiar with what we were doing. We used basically the same routine in three competitions and we were much more confident about it.” Brandi Dula thought the team camaraderie really helped. “This year I’ve had so much fun because we really all get along,” she explained.

Led by Alycia Allen and Assistant Coach Quentin Alexander, the girls gave their coaches all of the credit. “We would be nothing without them,” expressed Joanna Teplin, “They care about us so much and are so good at what they do; they’re just incredible.” Allyson Lee added thoughtfully that the coaches “have really helped us this year with positivity. They’re always telling us to watch out for our attitudes and that is so important.” “Definitely,” jumped in Leslie Shier, “when we won the Sportsmanship Trophy at State’s, they were so proud of us. They would have been happy about that even if we hadn’t won.”

After State Championships, the team had very little about which to be negative, and focused on their final competition: the Can-Am Internationals. “We really need to concentrate on positivity,” thought Wagner. “Negativity is contagious, and I’ve realized what a difference it can make this year. As a senior next year I’m really going to pay attention to getting everybody motivated.”

Motivation, though, was something in which the team was definitely not lacking. “We do a whole bunch of ‘killers’ in practice,” admitted Kathleen Creech, “and we just have to keep thinking about our trophy. We intend to win.”

The team accomplished their goal. They won first place in the dance and third in the cheer division against squads from Germany, Canada, and the United States.