Cheerleaders place first in Clovis
By John Earp
This past Saturday in Clovis, the Jal High School Cheer Team won first place in the “Cheer with Music” category. One performance was a band dance with a cheer set to the school fight song. The Cheer with Music category was mostly to show off the teams’ stunt skills. Other 2A schools participating in the meet this past Saturday included cheer teams from Texico, Santa Rosa, Tatum, Portales, and Fort Sumner.
The team has been practicing hard since preseason in June, with all their work and self-discipline paying off this past weekend. The team this year is made up of 15 girls, who practice two hours a day on their skills, stunts, and cheers, sometimes having additional practices on weekends. Cheer Coach Katia Martinez says, “The girls are really disciplined, and I appreciate it, because it takes a lot of time. You know they would rather be with their friends or doing other things, but I think that they really like the sport, so they don’t mind coming in and working on it.”
They have five additional cheer competitions coming up this school year, January 9th through 11th at Goddard (Roswell), January 25th at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, February 22nd in Artesia, March 1st in Hobbs, with New Mexico state championship competition to be held at University of New Mexico March 21st and 22nd.