St. Louis High School Varsity Cheer bringing the best school spirit!

Jaycee+Best+practices+her+game-day+ready+cartwheel.+

Autumn Mann

Jaycee Best practices her game-day ready cartwheel.

Autumn Mann, Editor

St. Louis High School Varsity Sideline Cheer is starting out the season right! With months of practice and team bonding, the team is stronger than ever. This year’s team is ready to bring team spirit to the field. For Fall of 2021, this team consists of eight players. These players are sophomores Jaycee Best, Chastity Markwell, and McKenzie Smith along with juniors Mikayla Haag, Maria Puga-Trevino, Evelynn Gutierrez, Lydia Abbott, and Autumn Mann.

Sideline cheer has already made their appearance at the defeat of Hesperia Panthers Sept. 2, and also Sept. 10, against Michigan Lutheran Seminary. At the game against Lutheran, the sideline cheer showcased their first stunt of the year! Kiersten Wenzlick, who was at the game that day stated, “It was so cool to see the cheerleaders do a stunt. They looked so awesome, and it was great! I noticed how the crowd wanted more and more stunts.”

Sideline cheer coach Gabrielle Beckett who was a former cheerleader at SLHS expressed, “This year is more different for so many reasons. The obvious reason is that we aren’t dealing with as many covid protocols as last year, so we are able to be inside using equipment and stunting for longer periods of time. I’m most excited about how far everyone has come in such a short period of time.” Beckett continued, “The team has made so many improvements from last year, most of them are probably too small for outsiders to realize. We’ve spent a lot of time cleaning up motions to make them sharp and snappy, worked on tone and inflection in chants, and so many more tumbling drills.” 

Jaycee Best, who has done cheer most of her life expressed, “I feel as if this year we are more involved with getting into the school spirit and being more part of the school and creating a better bond with the football team. My favorite thing about cheer this season is the new relationships we have formed and been able to connect with the student section.” 

Chastity Markwell, who joined SLHS cheer her freshman year, also stated, “Our team this year has improved on being able to learn things faster than previous years. We also improved on being more hype and excited during football games.” 

Evelynn Gutierrez, who recently joined cheer this year stated, “Cheer is one of my favorite things because it allows me to hang out with my friends but also create different bonds with people within our school.”

Mikayla Haag, who joined cheer her sophomore year stated, “One of my favorite things about cheer this year is definitely all the teamwork and how encouraging the whole team is.” Haag believes that her team can do nothing but grow and keep up the great work. She also expressed, “I feel our team has definitely improved on our communication, skills, and focus. Even though our team still struggles with these issues. I think that we’ve really been improving them every day at practice. “

Coach Beckett also stated that, “Being able to use the equipment really helps everyone with their tumbling, and it’s so exciting to watch everyone hit their goals and celebrate. I think the team is most excited about bringing more spirit into the school and games. Last year nobody really knew what was going on because everything changed each week, but now that we know what to expect, everyone is really excited about bringing new ideas.” Beckett continued, “My favorite part about being their coach is how much they include me in their lives whether that be telling me big news or just how their day was. I love that they feel comfortable enough to come to me to help them talk through personal issues and that they often tell me coming to practice is their favorite part of the day.”