Senior Scarlets Steal Nationals
Arick Ames
Staff Writer
Senior Kennedy Kroger and freshman Lily Tangeman won first place with their competitive team on Feb. 15 and 16 at the Convention Center held in Council Bluffs for the Nebraska National Cheer Competition. Where their team, the Senior Scarlets, Since winning, get to move forward to the next competition which is being held in Chicago later in the months.
The Senior Scarlets is just one of the eight other teams in Lincoln.
“It’s a level two team, which means you can do anything up to back handsprings,” Kroger said, “but nothing like back tucks and such.”
The practices and competitions for the cheer team here at Waverly are a little bit different than competitive teams. Cheering practices at the school level are usually just normal stretching and going over cheers. Also, Waverly only competes once, at state, with other high school teams.
“It’s different from Waverly Cheer because we don’t actually do cheers,” Tangeman said. “at competitions it’s just one big performance.”
The competitive teams in Lincoln do more practicing on their routine. So tumbling, stunts and ending the routine with a dance. Then of course going to multiple competitions with their routines.
Being part of one or more cheer teams can take a lot of time and energy. So one must know how to have dedication.
“I never really had time to do it because of volleyball, so I took a year off so I could try it out and I ended up loving it,” Kroger said. “But this is my first year doing the competitive team.”
On March 15 and 16, Kroger and Tangeman will sidekick and backflip their way to the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center for the next round in nationals.
