Following a delay, the EHS Varsity Cheerleading team placed third in IHSA Cheerleading sectionals and moved onto the state competition the following day on February 8.

At sectionals, our Tigers faced off tough, neighboring squads from nearby areas like Collinsville and Belleville, according to junior Celeste Bremley.

“We have a strong chance of making state this year if we hit a clean routine,” Bremley said.

Bremley’s right. The cheerleaders made a marked rise to become the top team in the area, having won many invitational meets and been crowned champions of ICCA State.

“Our competition keeps getting better and better,” Bremley said, “so we must get better and better.”

The last time the Tigers won ICCA State was in 2008. This year, two EHS veteran from that state-qualifying squad returned as coaches: Ms. Tess Henke and Ms. Cayla Bowen.

“They instill a harder work ethic in us,” Bremley said. “I’m so glad the two new coaches joined the team.”

Along with head coach Mrs. Ashley Walsh, the cheerleaders and their coaches devoted the past 8 months on developing and perfecting the team’s routine to be as great as possible.

“The team has worked extremely hard and has come a long way,” Ms. Henke said. “I believe this team deserves to move on to [IHSA] State.”

With a season’s worth of practices behind them, the Tigers were ready to perform at Sectionals

“I told everyone to compete like it was our last time,” senior Betse Cote said. After hitting a perfect routine, the judges proved Cote wrong, and the Tigers placed Third overall to advance to state.

“Every senior on the team cried because we were so happy to be moving on to state, which was our original goal at the beginning of the year,” Cote said.

After a rallying performance at sectionals, the Tigers had to miraculously muster up the same vigor at state the very next day. “Everyone on the team was sore and tired from yesterday,” Cote said, “and we had three girls on the team with either the flu or food poisoning.”

Despite a few ailments that marred this tour de force squad, the Tigers gave it their all at their final performance of the season. They placed 18th out of 80 but could have placed in the top ten had the judges not mistakenly deducted points off their score. “Hearing that felt like someone had stabbed me in the heart,” Cote said, “but also eased my mind a little bit because we actually finished where we wanted to.”