Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Northside Varsity cheer tries to attend a cheer camp every year to give their girls opportunities to further develop their skills. This year, they attended a UCA (Universal Cheerleaders Association) camp at East Carolina University with 12 other schools including Washington High School.

The camp was held from July 8 through July 10 and covered a variety of skills, predominantly stunting, but also jumps, dances, cheers, and putting together choreography. The camp had workshops for coaches and captains to work together, reviewed football so cheerleaders could understand the reasons they were cheering and taught the girls leadership skills.

The UCA program hosts camps to improve cheerleaders’ skills and to help build a competitive team of their own. They offer the chance to tryout to be a part of their “All-American” team. Girls will tryout in groups of four or five and learn a variety of skills that they need to be able to retain quickly.

The skills show that they are good, well-rounded cheerleaders and if they do well enough, they can be chosen as an All-American. Five Northside cheerleaders tried out and all five were selected. The five cheerleaders included senior captains Sierra Minor, Trinity O’Neal, and Addy Davenport, along with juniors Khloe Hewitt and Mackenzie Conoway. Minor, O’Neal, and Davenport each got invited to tryout to be a part of the UCA staff for 2025.

Northside also won first place for cheer and crowd leading in the Medium Varsity Division alongside the “Tradition Award” voted by the UCA staff for “inspiring leadership on and off the field.”

Head coach Jaclyn Small had high praise for the camp, especially for team bonding. “It was a team bonding experience from the moment we stepped on the bus, the girls got pushed to their limits but learned to lean on each other,” Small said. “Leaving the camp these girls are stronger and more confident than they have ever been. Our seniors mentioned to me that they thought this was the best camp experience they had ever had.”