Kicking off Malden’s first football game against Lynn Tech, Malden’s cheer team, with their vibrant cheers and remarkable stunts, played a massive role in igniting the stadium’s school spirit, keeping the crowds excited for the entirety of the game and following the football team’s first win of the season.
Head Coach Brianna Silva-Couture and Assistant Coach Bianca Scola revealed this fall season’s captains to be seniors Reva Upadhayay, Gloria Alexis, Aundrea Cifuentes who is a Senior Lead Reporter for The Blue and Gold, and Alexia Lima, an Editor-in-Chief of The Blue and Gold, to lead the team.
Upadhayay added that she enjoys being captain and “loves being able to be there for the girls, and help the coaches out,” noting how they make “a great team.” Like fellow captain Upadhayay, Alexis “wants to be a great role model for the underclassmen and show them what cheering is all about.”
At the start of the game, the cheer team held up a large banner, welcoming the football team as they ran through the paper, making a grand entrance to show off to the crowd. Throughout the rest of the game, the team cheered and hyped up both the football players and the people in the stands, repeatedly shifting the cheers from offensive or defensive to match which football team had the ball. Additionally, they did stunts, such as having three girls lift up a flyer every time there was a timeout being called.
After the first half ended, the cheer team ran to the center of the field to do their halftime performance. As soon as the speaker blasted the music, they started with six stunt groups and continued with a dance routine, including a round-off back-tuck done by junior Hannah Coggswell and freshman Sofia Lamara, to entertain the crowd while the football team went inside the locker rooms to take a break and recap the first half.
With the music and timer ending, the cheer team waved their poms in the air towards the crowd and made their way back to the sidelines to cheer for the rest of the game.
Coach Silva-Couture mentioned that since it was the first game, the team’s performance had a “rocky start,” but they eventually managed to pull through. Senior captain Alexis also mentioned how the team and herself could’ve done better. “We were working as a team to improve and be more confident.”
Senior Scarlet De Los Santos Feliz is a returning member for her second year. She shared how “it feels amazing to be a returning member” and wanted to apply everything she learned from last season to improve and “teach the new members of the team” how they do things so that they can all collaborate. She hopes to bring the same energy back from last year, “or make it even better so that we can all have fun and enjoy every minute of it.”
De Los Santos Feliz looks forward to improving her stunts and is also excited for the pep rally, mentioning “we have so much fun practicing our routines and performing it.”
The team also brought in a lot of new members, with coach Scola mentioning how she “hopes that captains and returning members of the team can connect with new members through the love of what we’re doing and build a strong chemistry to ensure a season of success.”
Upadhayay also highlighted how she wants the new members “to have fun and be able to look back at us when they potentially come into our shoes their senior year,” and be able to reference how they did things.
Coach Silva-Couture highlighted how the cheer team is “the entertainment for the crowds and the backbone of support for the football team.”
Junior Arantza Colina Perez, who is new to the team, decided to try out because her friends convinced her to. ColinaPerez added, “I was never expecting to do cheer. It was a last-minute decision, and it was just like the best decision I could make.” Even with little experience, she “always had kind of admiration for cheerleaders as a little girl.”
“I really like doing cheer. I feel like I’ve made a lot of unexpected friendships with people, and it’s been just so fun to be a part of the team,” Colina Perez mentioned.Although sophomore Anna Batres is not new to doing cheer, as she has been doing since seventh grade, she is new to Malden High’s cheer team. “I decided to try out for the Malden cheer team because I like the idea of discipline and just coming together as a team and cheering people on.” Batres also commented that she loves the work ethic of being in cheer and “the community it brings.”
Batres added, “I love being a new member on the cheer team. I love getting to know all the people and just getting a sense of how different everybody is and the love and community that they already had before I arrived.”
There have been many good things happening, especially with the team making new friendships and laughing with each other during practices. However, there are also many hardships. Being a new member, Colina Perez was frustrated with herself about the stunt formations and getting herself to be sharp with everything. “But overall, there’s been more good than bad during practices or games,“ emphasized Colina Perez.
For the rest of the season, “my personal goals are just improving the stunts and the things that I work towards, having a good friendship with all the girls on the team, and having a fun time cheering the guys on. Just making the best of every experience that I get,” said Batres.
Likewise, Colina Perez added that “my personal goals are to really nail down my stunts and really get them good. I feel like working with my stunt group has been very helpful. We’re all learning together as we’re going through the season.”
As the cheer team soon enters the middle of the season, they hope to work together to improve and make a lasting impact by “cheerleading to the fullest,” concluded Coach Silva-Couture.
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