The Arlington High School cheer team is preparing for the upcoming cheer season, as tryouts are currently taking place. Tryouts will run from April 7th until April 10th in the Arlington High School gym from 4:30 to 7pm each day.
On the first day of tryouts, athletes receive different numbers to differentiate themselves from each other. These numbers are used in place of the athletes’ names.
The first three days of tryouts are the clinic round, where the girls come and learn all of the tryout material. This consists of a cheer, the fight song, and jumps. Seniors from the past season come in to teach this material to the girls trying out.
Senior and Arlington High School cheer alumni, Eliza Rector, is one of the girls who came in to teach the material. She explains how she was very excited to have the opportunity to come in and see all the new girls who will be the future of Arlington Cheer. As a long-time member of the program, she has a lot of passion and love for it and wanted to help with tryouts.
On the second day of tryout clinics, there are tumbling tryouts. During this time, groups of nine girls at a time will be asked to complete certain tumbling skills. The more of these skills they are able to do, the higher they will score.
Clinic round takes place before the final day of tryouts and helps the girls to have lots of time to practice and prepare to be judged. They are able to perfect their tryout material to score as high as possible at tryouts. Thursday, April 10th, is when the final tryout day will take place. The girls will go into the gym three at-a-time and perform their fight song, cheer, and jumps for a panel of judges.
The tumbling tryout scores will be combined with the final day tryout scores to determine the girls overall results. Coach Luke Nowell, head coach of Arlington Cheer, will then determine if the girls make one of the two teams, JV or Varsity. Scores will be posted on the rotunda doors sometime Thursday night, where the girls will then come to see which team they made, if any.
