Cheerleading and other non-contact sports are often not given enough attention or the credit that is rightfully deserved. The Pascack Valley competitive cheerleading team is having one of their best seasons in five years, yet the coverage and publicity has not been headlined on the team’s success.

“Other [and more popular] sports are announced [and publicized, while] sports like cheer are not talked about [even though] we are performing well,” sophomore cheerleader Tahlia Perrone said.

According to members of the PV competitive cheer team, competitive cheerleading is scored much differently than other sports of that nature. The team competes twice at every competition, and each time they perform their routines, it is scored separately. The score is based on the difficulty and technique of their jumps and acrobatics.

“One of our strengths is our motions and jumps which score us a lot of points,” Coach Kacey Terzini said. “They always bring energy at the competitions [which] is something I can’t teach so that is [totally] on them.”

Despite her not being able to teach them energy, Terzini is very strict with her cheerleaders, always making sure they are on task and doing everything they need to do to succeed. This system has proved to be effective and can be seen through their results at the competitions. 

PV competitive cheerleading team competes in the Big North Division. Since being in the Big North, they have won their division every year. This year is the first time in five years that the team has reached the Big North championship. The Big North championship is similar to a tournament of champions between all of the division winners. 

At the Big North championship, the team placed 4th out of the 4 teams. However, in their first performance, Junior Ava Kim, who is the main flier, injured herself.

“I was doing a round-off handspring tuck,” Kim said. “When I jumped, I twisted my knee cap and dislocated it. I [was in] shock mainly [because] I had surgery on that leg five years ago.” 

Kim is a key component in all of their routines, so the loss was definitely felt by the team.

However, injuries in cheer are not uncommon and occur much more often than expected. According to a study done by Health Grades, competitive cheerleading is the fifth most likely sport to cause an injury.

“Among the 12- to 17-year-old set, cheerleading caused nearly 29,000 injuries in 2011, 12% of which were concussions,” Health Grades said.

As well as having to persevere through this injury, the team had to rely on senior leadership as the team consists of many underclassmen.

Senior Jolie Bellaff fills this leadership role by giving much-needed encouragement to the team.

“I think it’s just about using experience and helping the younger kids have a positive attitude,” Bellaff said. “[We] lead them to believe they can win and help them with [their] tumbling spots.”

The cheerleading team had a very successful season and looks to continue this success in the years to come, especially with such a young team.