For the first time in our school’s history, the THMS cheer team goes to nationals, there they will compete against some of the fiercest competition. The Cheer team (the Game day squad), which is led by Coach Sarah Ellison, placed tenth overall.
The competition team is composed of seven freshmen, twelve sophomores, three juniors, and seven seniors. Junior Ericka Apolskis was one of just three juniors to represent our school’s cheer squad.
“We had gotten fourth in competition, so we had known that we were going to qualify for nationals, but it was still so surreal that we were given the opportunity to go. My brain still couldn’t fully process that I was in Disney, and that I was a part of a big cheer competition,” Ericka said. “Even though there were a lot of other schools there, I tried not to focus on them since that would make me even more nervous. I believed that if we put our hearts in it, we could do what we needed to do, and we did.” Erica plans on doing cheer during her senior year.
When students graduate high school they want to have that one fond memory to look back on. This won’t be a problem for senior Kacey Romere. “Since our school has never made it that far in a competition before, it was a really exciting feeling. Being able to go to Florida to compete and hang out with my friends was my favorite part of going,” Kacey said. “I was so thrilled to be competing in a major competition that it pushed away any nervousness I might have felt. I was just so happy that I was able to experience this during my senior year.”
Going to nationals meant that the TMHS cheer team were going to go head to head with some of America’s best. Freshman Laine Drewett was confident that her team would do well against the others. “One of our biggest competitors is Alamo Heights, that was the team that I was the most anxious about; however, when the judges announced that our school will be an auto-finalist I was shocked and elated. That moment for me was really special knowing that Alamo Heights would have to go to the semi finals and we didn’t,” Laine said. “To be a freshman and on the competition team was really amazing for me. All of my teammates were all so nice and gave me such good advice. Even the girls that weren’t going to Florida were still happy for me and the others.”
After a few days of competing the judges announced which schools were moving on to the semi-finals. Our school was able to bi-pass semi-finals and head straight to finals.