Filled with incredible amounts of energy and school spirit, the University City High School’s Cheer Squad performs routines at nearly every football game in order to try to excite the crowd.

The Cheer Squad at UCHS has been very busy this year. According to the Cheer Advisor Dana Macatantan, the team makes breakthrough banners for the Football Team to run through before games and after half time. Also, there has been an enormous amount of planning for this year’s Homecoming game.

The Cheer Squad has been practicing and training since the beginning of summer. “We do a lot of training and conditioning. Over summer, we practiced three times a week. As part of our training, we do the centurion mile, and practice each cheer three times. Each time we mess up, we have to start over, which is a lot of work,” said Junior Liz Dils.

Recently, the Cheer Squad has been working with the Pep Band to choreograph routines to the band’s music, with songs such as Dynamite, and E.T. “We’re taking some routines we had last year and we’re improving them. The band this year is really good, so we’re excited to choreograph routines to all the music that they have provided for us,” said Dils.

“This year is the largest squad I have had. We had over ninety people tryout, which is twice as many as we’ve had for tryouts in previous years. This year, we have twenty six on varsity and twenty four on JV,” said Macatantan. With a larger team, the Cheerleaders are now able to do more to show their support of UCHS, such as making posters for every sport.

This year, the Cheer Squad has added a male member to their family. “Having a male on the team has been fun. He’s like a big brother to the girls. He provides a strength that many girls cannot perform such as partner stunting [lifts],” said Macatantan. “Being the only guy on the team is fun; it gives me a good advantage. I can learn a lot of things for them and they can learn a lot of things from me. My teammates have confidence in me, so I think it gives them more of an edge,” said Junior Joey Fishell.

After winning National Champions last year, the Cheer Squad is eager for competition season this year. “This year, we are hoping to attend four competitions. Our competitions will be from January to the end of March. We are still figuring out details, but we will definitely be going back to the Spirit Sport Competition that takes place in Palm Springs in February,” said Macatantan.