The GNHS cheering knights started their series of competitions at home, starting with the Grayslake North Invite hosted on January 18th. The team reflected on their goals and assessed how they did with them.
The girls have previously had three competitions leading up to the Invite: Lincoln-Way Central on December 14th, Rolling Meadows on December 21st, and Lake Zurich on January 11th.
In an email, senior Addi Giametta observed that they “have shown so much progress from the first performance.”
Senior Sami Trendle added to this in another email. “Stunts have definitely improved over time and are a lot more solid now. Tumbling needs to get going because we’re losing points for silly errors that don’t happen at practice. “We also need to focus on smiling, yelling, and the technical part of the routine.”
With a few tweaks along the way, Giametta and Trendle were confident in the team’s upcoming performance.
Additionally, with a home competition comes the perks of familiarity and extra support: both of which were things that the girls hoped to use to their advantage.
“Being at home is nice because we know how to use the size of the gym to our advantage, we use the weight room to get ready, and we know how our mats are so nothing comes as a surprise,” Trendle shared.
“It’s always exciting to compete where we’re used to practicing, and a lot of people we know like to come and support us, so the crowds are always bigger and more energetic,” Giametta added.
The cheering knights were well prepared for their competition with clear goals, visible previous progression, and a home gym advantage: all of which would be helpful to compete against the most important teams.
Trendle stated that “the most important teams to score against would be the conference teams, as they then competed against them on Monday, January 20th, and then again at sectionals on Saturday, February 1st.”
All of these envisions came together for the competition in which they placed fourth, beating Antioch High School in fifth place and Lakes Community High School in sixth place. The girls fell short of bronze by only two tenths of a point to the cross-town rival Grayslake Central.
Overall, the competition went generally well. With a long and tiring day of hosting, and the girls having to be present for the entirety of the day, they improved the score in their jumps and their projection while also improving in the showmanship category. However, the pyramid didn’t go as well as they hoped. Trendle and Senior Kendall Day both agreed in an interview that it was not up to its full potential.
“It didn’t fall but it didn’t go up as it was supposed to,” said Day. “It came down to a half. “Despite this, they still have a couple of competitions to improve before the season comes to an end. As they go forward, Day shared that the girls want to continue to improve things that have gone wrong, while adding new difficulty to the routine for the highest possible score. Trendle added that they hope to hit zero as they work hard towards it.
At the highly skilled State competition, the girls took 13th place out of 25 teams. Congratulations GNHS Cheer Team on an amazing 2024-2025 competition season!
