Gracefully flipping, tucking, and stunting, the Bulldog Cheerleaders put on an impressive home showing at the Spirit Bowl competition this past Saturday, Oct. 18. Having prepared their routine since August, the cheer team was determined to put on their best performance possible, ultimately resulting in a second place victory.
Seniors and captains Caitlyn Stone, Abby Coullahan, and Kendall Anthony have been cheerleaders since elementary school. Competing in their home gym for their last-ever regular season competition excited and motivated the girls.
“The Spirit Bowl is fun because it’s our home turf and home territory, so we get a little bit of home field advantage,” Stone said. “It’s fun seeing our peers, students, and teachers come too. It’s just really nice seeing that support from everyone at our school.”
The cheer team is always hoping to impress their fans, but with an entirely new dynamic this year, the cheerleaders spent a lot of time strengthening their team to reach peak athletic performance.
“We have been rebuilding a lot with the loss of a lot of seniors,” Coullahan said. “But I feel like this is the strongest team I’ve seen in a while, mentally and physically, so I feel like it’s definitely a team that can work together to be successful.”
Due to the athleticism of this team, the cheerleading bulldogs decided to upgrade their routine this year by assigning a theme for their 2025 season: the Bulldog Army. Marching, saluting, and wearing classic camo green, the girls have made their choreography even more fun and engaging for fans.
“All of our music and props are related to the theme,” junior Alli Dwyer said. “I like it because we all seem really motivated with it, and we do hand motions and signs that relate to the army and military in general.”
The road to success has been bumpy for these girls as they have dealt with unfortunate injuries and other hardships throughout the entire season. Luckily, the captains have used their experience and leadership skills to encourage the younger team members to stay hopeful, intentional, and focused in practice.
“We’ve been having practices every single day, and we’ve really focused on reconnecting the team and shifting the focus of practice to bring everyone together so that we can bring that bond on the mat so then it transfers to our performance,” Stone said. “We’ve definitely been training physically, but we’ve also been working on our mentality going into this to make sure that we’re all in a good headspace and can be successful.”
The girls put in a lot of effort to have such a successful outcome on Saturday at the Spirit Bowl. The cheer team wants to prove to their fans that they are true athletes who can do so much more than simple sideline chants at football games.
[People] only really see us at the football games, but we’re not really doing much there,” Dwyer said. “At practice, we work hard and have to have a lot of stamina, so they wouldn’t expect us to be at the gym all the time, but I think our routine shows our athleticism.”
