Y-E-L-L everybody YELL! Go Pats, whoo go Pats. It’s a commonly heard cheer at football games performed by our large cheer squad.

The Liberty cheer squad began its season with a total of 26 girls, an amount which hasn’t been seen for years. This year, the team has focused on introducing new cheers during lunches on Fridays commonly called “Cheers of the Week.”

“I know last year we would do cheers and [the fans] wouldn’t know them at all, and we started them this year so you guys could follow along and be super loud,” junior captain Sophia Davis said.

Senior Belle Sturm believes the “Cheers of the Week” have helped the school become a closer knit group when it comes to cheering on the football team and other school sports. Along with Belle junior Jocelyn Tierney thinks that the number of girls on the team this year has helped create cheers that are creative and different than cheers in the past.

“The Cheer instructors taught us new stunts and cheers along with better crowd involvement,” senior captain Sara Norwood said.
Teaching 26 cheer leaders— many of whom were brand new— provided its challenges. The team attended a private cheer camp with hired professional cheer coaches to teach them new fundamentals of cheering.

“[The camp] kind of brought us all together and we all really bonded.” Davis said, “We learned some new cheers and pyramids.”

Along with going to cheer camp, the team had practices throughout August to practice all of its new cheers for the upcoming season.