I’m sure we’ve all heard the saying “practice makes perfect” at least once? Well for the Davenport West Coed Competition Cheerleaders, practice did make perfect! On November 4th the Iowa Cheerleading Coaches’s Association (ICCA) held its 33rd annual Iowa Cheerleading State Championships at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. The team spent the last seven months practicing and competing in two other competitions to prepare for the championship which paid off in the end.
“We were really excited that they got second place. Second place is a really huge accomplishment because in that division there’s a lot of really, really talented teams, talented schools and talented athletes, so anytime the school places top three and brings home a trophy is a big deal. We were just really proud of them for getting second place at State,” cheer coach Mrs. Kormann said.
There’s a lot put into the process of getting the cheerleaders ready for their competitions, and most people don’t really look into those details to see just how hard the cheerleaders work.
“We had like three cheer back-to-back practices roughly around like two to three hours, and we had two other competitions before state,” junior Aaron Clinton said.
The Davenport West Cheerleaders worked hard to get where they are. The team is full of very talented athletes who have their own separate strengths and weaknesses that helped pull the team together and made their performances the best they could.
“My strength with cheer is tumbling and my weakness is trying new things, like I don’t like feeling that I did bad at something, and this year is my first year flying so obviously when I started I felt like I was bad at it,” senior Karma Caldwell said.
The Davenport West Cheerleaders spend almost a year practicing for this competition. Whether it was spending two to three hours of practice or competing in other competitions. The cheerleaders made sure to use what they practiced to grow both as a team and individually, which overall is what helped them at State to bring home the second place trophy.
