AUDREY KEIM and KEILA KUNTZ –

CV Student Media –  

The cheer team finds itself down three crucial athletes in the beginning of competition season.

With performances rapidly approaching, it was more important than ever for varsity to have its cheerleaders healthy and ready to perform, but injuries affected the progress of the team and hindered them from many important events and competitions”.

Courtney Bennett ‘18 suffered from a foot injury early on, and Sloan Peterson had an accident that rendered her unable to compete.

“My injury is a “nicked” Achilles’ tendon,” said Peterson. “It happened after practice hitting a table when cleaning up. The cut I had was about an inch deep and two inches long; I ended up with 12 stitches.”

In addition to that, Lindsay Alfano ‘17 was hurt when backing a stunt by another person landing on her. “When I hit the ground, I got whiplash and tore some muscles in my shoulder and neck and got a concussion,” she said. “My team was super supportive and helped me figure out how to get better quickly. We’re missing the two competitions that we’d actually get people to watch us at because they’re close, and we’re missing a really big national qualifier.”

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, a third incident added insult to injury, so to speak, when senior Jackson Chase ‘16 broke his hand on October 6th at a tumbling practice on a back handspring.

“It makes me so upset.” Chase said. “I’m out for 4-6 weeks and it puts a hurting on the team because I’m a key part in the structures and we have competitions coming up, so it just holds them back.”

As a sport that’s entirely focused on teamwork, it was difficult to overcome the loss of athletes because everybody had a designated role in the routines. Certain people were designated flyers, while others were spotters. Taking away just one person from the performance would have an effect; lacking four would serve as a major obstacle.

“It really gets the team when we have injuries because when one person is out, a whole stunt group is affected. And it’s a team sport so we need every person,” said Peterson.

In the end, the cheer team decided that they would most likely not compete their first few competitions. This decision would leave them with less opportunities to qualify for nationals, but with many key cheerleaders out with injuries, there wasn’t a choice.

Despite the discouraging injuries, Alfano remained positive.

“We’re going to pull through this, I’m positive. We’ve been through so much and all of this is only going to bring us closer and make us work harder,” Alfano said. “I’m super excited to see where we go as a team and it’s going to make every one of our accomplishments feel that much better.”