The cheer team secured new members last May, while still utilizing their returning squad members, according to junior cheer captain, Asael Aburto. 

The cheer team was previously covered by The Observer, see “Cheer team rebrands to become co-ed”, prior to May’s tryouts. At that time, the team was hopeful for more men to try out, as the team planned to go co-ed. 

According to Aburto, the team is semi co-ed now, as there are two men on the team. 

“A fully co-ed team is 50% male and 50% female, so each girl would have one guy … right now we’re in between. We’re not fully co-ed, but not fully all girls,” Aburto said. 

The team, to Aburto’s knowledge, has only ever cheered on the sidelines of games and has never gotten the chance to compete in a cheer competition. 

“I’ve only heard ‘CWU cheer’ and ‘competition’ in the same sentence in the sense that they go to the Washington State High School Cheerleading Competition and they just perform [an] exhibition,” Aburto said.

Competing and performing on the side lines are two different experiences, according to Aburto. 

“I miss competing so much,” Aburto said. “The competition environment is so different, it’s just a whole different vibe. It’s just us, all the spotlights on us. The main focus is on the cheerleaders and the scoresheets.”

Sophomore cheerleader, Sebreena Kemp said they have not gotten much information on the team competing, but the team is staying hopeful. 

“We don’t have too much information on it, we’re wanting to do it but nothing has been for sure yet,” Kemp said.

Aburto is passionate about the possibility of the team competing, as he competed with teams prior to his collegiate career. 

“I am pushing to compete as long as I am here … We are shooting for CWU cheer to be competing in the near future,” Aburto said.

The new additions to the team have allowed a variety of partner and group stunts, including larger pyramids, according to Kemp. 

“Last year we didn’t do too much of partner stunting, but this year having the guys on the team we’re able to have one partner stunt and then we still have the group stunting too,” Kemp said.

During the May tryouts, the selected cheerleaders made up the squad to be half newcomers and half returners, according to Aburto.

“Half our team are returners and half our team are newcomers,” Aburto said. “It gives into the aspect of why this season is going so well because it’s 50/50.”

The returners did the most to perfect their skills last season, which has paid off this season, according to Kemp.

“We’ve expanded our skills a lot with some of the stunts,” Kemp said. “We can let the crowd see some harder skills that we didn’t do last year. Since we got all the skills solid last year, we’re able to expand more.”

The team held another tryout Saturday in hopes to build the team even larger.

“We’re going into open minded, whoever shows up, shows up,” Kemp said. “People can come and they don’t even need to try out. They can just come for fun to see what we’re all about and then maybe next year they’ll want to try out.”