September 16, 2022
Stunting has a huge role in competition cheerleading and for senior Alexis Kelley, she started doing competition cheerleading during her middle school years and now continues to pursue it throughout her high school career.
“So I’ve been doing comp cheerleading since seventh grade,” Kelley said. “I moved around gyms a little bit but now I currently cheer in Nor*Cal Elite.”According to Kelley, competition cheerleading has its differences from regular high school cheer.
“We compete like a two-minute-thirty-second routine full of jumps, tumbling stunts, pyramids, no actual chants or cheering,” Kelley said.
With stunting being a very big part of cheerleading for Kelley, she believes that it has an effect on her love for the sport. The love that Kelley has for stunting has really formed into a love for the sport in general.
“I decided to start doing competition cheerleading back in middle school because my middle school was going to stop allowing stunting for our cheer team,” Kelley said. “I really fell in love with stunting so I really wanted to continue it and the only way I could do that was through competition cheer.”
Senior Caty Sergent does sideline cheer and plans on doing stunt cheer in the spring but she has cheered with Kelley throughout high school and enjoys the energy she brings to the team.
“She comes to practice with a smile on her face and she just makes practice enjoyable, Sergent said.”
For Kelley, cheerleading/stunting has a level of trust that brings everybody together and closer as a team.
“It really is like just a fun sport to do and it’s really nice to be so close to your teammates because you literally have to trust them with your life,” Kelley said.
Although Sergent doesn’t work directly with Kelly while cheering/stunting, she believes that Kelley has a great spirit when it comes to the sport.
“Alexis is just a really great cheerleader, she’s really dedicated to the sport,” Sergent said. “She puts a lot of time and effort into it and it’s really admirable how dedicated she is.”
According to Sergent, Kelley hasn’t just done school or local stunt/cheer competitions, but she has traveled outside of state also.
“She’s been on a couple different all-star teams and she’s gone to a bunch of competitions outside of just school,” Sergent said. “She’s traveled to places like Florida and a bunch of different places for competitions.”
Kelley plans to keep doing cheerleading and desires to get recognized by the next level of cheer.
“I’m not sure about competition cheerleading but I really hope to get a stunt scholarship in college,” Kelley said.
