BHS hosted the cheerleading NIC-10 Conference competition on Jan. 20 and didn’t get to compete for JV or Varsity due to COVID complications. The team also hosted sectionals on Jan. 29,  which only varsity was able to compete in.

COVID has had a big impact on both JV and Varsity this year. Due to the team being smaller, it couldn’t can’t afford to lose anyone. Multiple team members stated that they never had a normal week since the winter break, so they began to shrink their routines. The team didn’t have everyone going to practice for almost the entire January until the last three days until sectionals. 

Head coach Sam Peters talked about how his ultimate goal is to be top three in the NIC-10 conference and to place top 5 at Sectionals to qualify for state. Peters said, “Regardless of my team or the season, this is always my personal goal,” he said. “But to get to that point, the bigger ‘weekly’ goal is to see constant growth.”

Peters felt strongly that the team could have accomplished two of the three goals mentioned previously. He started to see weekly growth, from the first competition to the second competition, there was an increase of nearly 13 points in scoring. Then COVID hit and they had to miss the next three competitions – not ideal. 

He believes they would have had a strong chance to place top 3 in Conference too – especially since the Winter Classic competition was already high enough to have placed third at Conference. 

Regardless of what you’ve gone through, sectionals are always going to be tough. Despite what the scores said, the team feels they did a great job. They had to change things and put people back in days prior to competition. Peter said, “We did score as high as I would have anticipated, but sectionals tend to be the “hardest, most critically judged competition you compete in all year. Although we didn’t make it to state, I appreciate the effort those girls put out on the mat”.

Peter took the varsity team down to state so they could get a feel of how it would be to go to state. State is different from any competition you ever cheer in high school. Peter’s hope is that the cheerleaders feel the different vibe and use it to fuel them because the team is right there and ready to make the leap.