After a tryout clinic held on April 15, the Pacific University Cheer team has doubled from eight to 16 members.
Sophomore Caitlyn Voss, who will be cheering for her third time next year is looking forward to the increased size of the team because in the past she recalls it being hard to do certain cheers and stunts with the amount of cheerleaders they had.
“I was very excited to see so many talented girls show up to the tryout clinic that we held,” Voss said.
Next year the team will have a variety of girls ranging from incoming freshman to incoming seniors with various skill levels and a new assistant coach, Erin Krupp.
Freshman Kylee Putnam, who never thought she would become a cheerleader, has no prior experience but has a background in dancing for 15 years.
“I have the dance aspect of that down and now I need more of the performance, crowd pleasing and outgoing aspects from cheer,” Puntam said.
Putnam is not the only dance team member who has joined the cheer team, sophomore Taylor Baker switched over as well as two other women.
“I’m looking forward to making new friends on the team and learning new skills I’ve never learned before,” Baker said. “What I want to get out of this are new skills that can help me in my dancing such as tumbling and stunting.”
Next year the team hopes to increase their practice time to increase their skill and draw more people to the team. For Voss, practice serves as an outlet as well.
“Our cheer team reputation has really turned around within the last few years with the talent level that we have so I think that people are starting to see that and want to be a part of it,” Voss said.
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