Many people think cheer is just girls cheering on the sidelines for football or basketball games, but there is more to cheer than just sideline. There are many different types of cheer: competitive cheer, school/sideline cheer, and now there is stunt.

Stunt is a competitive game where two teams perform the same exact routine at the same exact time and are judged by officials. 

It consists of four quarters –  the first being partner stunts, second being pyramids and tosses, the third being jumps and tumbling, and lastly the fourth being everything combined. The appointed officials give a point to the team who executed the routine better. Each quarter has six routines – one being the easiest and six being the hardest. 

As the teams perform the same routine, the girls have to stand out. 

“To make ourselves look different specifically, in the rules it says we don’t have to smile or perform, but to stand out we like to smile to show the judges that we enjoy what we’re doing,” said Coach Sophia Solis. 

The girls practice four to five times a week and go really into detail to make sure the routine is clean and perfected. “It’s easy to lose a point but it’s harder to gain a point,” said Solis.

This is WCHS Cheer’s third year doing stunt, but with COVID, it threw everything off. They had a short season last year, with only having four weeks to practice and two weeks of games, but this year they have more time to practice and get better.

Since stunt is mostly based on technique, it helps the girls better their technique. 

The most important thing is “who did it better, technique, and sharpness,” stated junior Ciara Valadez.

This time that strictly focuses on those skills helps the girls a lot in the main season and competing in general.

“It is important that the stunts look clean because we get higher points if we are cleaner than the other teams,” Valadez said.

Since stunt is a game, the girls stay motivated because they “only have one team to be better than,” said Captain Monique Carrillo. 

Thankfully with school being back in-person, cheer stunt is proving to become much more popular with many more opportunities for girls to strengthen their skills and enjoy their sport.