The South Windsor Panthers worked with the South Windsor High School Bobcats for a day. The South Windsor cheerleaders took the little ones under their wing bringing them into the back gym at South Windsor High School on Saturday, September 23, 2023.
The young cheerleaders arrived at the high school at 8:00am in order to learn a halftime, a halftime is normally a cheer with dance and stunts. They needed to cheer in order to perform at the game against the Topper Hills on Saturday.
The Panthers were assigned to a Bobcat that they stayed with the whole time serving in the capacity of mentor/mentee.
When the Panthers were getting walked to their assigned cheerleaders by the runners, the Bobcats played Kids Bop music, so the Panthers would be less nervous and have some fun before learning for the next 3 hours. Once all the girls got into the back gym, they circled up to start stretching together. Then it was time to split them up with their buddies to get the show started.
“I think the girls did really well at this halftime dance because they were focused the whole time making sure they picked up the choreography on the dance, and I thought it went really well,” said sophomore Bobcat Emma Boldi.
The two groups then split up and started working on their parts for the halftime show. They practiced the performance over five times together before showing it off to the parents along with the cheer, “C.A.T.S let’s go cats”.
The girls did great performing for the parents along with the cheer. The older cheerleaders were so proud of their buddies, congratulating them and guiding words for the girls to remember their next moves. The girls said it was great to see our future high school cheerleaders cheering today.
The girls ate donuts, bagels, fruit, cookies, and orange juice. Then it was time to go out to the game. The Panthers were nervous seeing that it was their first high school game, but they did great. They were yelling out cheers to the football players and yelling along with the cheers that the Bobcats called. Their moves were tight and clean; the older girls were very proud of them.
The girls got nervous as the clock got down to two minutes for half time; they were afraid to mess up, although they were proud of the boys for a 28-0 score. It was a mixture of emotions. Both teams of girls lined up and started walking to the 50 yard line while cheering on the boys as they were walking off the field.
The girls walked out onto the field, and the music started very quietly, the Bobcats started counting . The girls did well hitting every move out on the field .
The cheerleaders finished off strong as well as the football team finished off with a score of 42-6. The girls were proud, ending off in one last cheer for the game chanting, “Everywhere we go yea we tell a story yea we tell the whole wide world this is bobcat territory.”
