The first pep rally of the second semester was held on Wednesday, Feb. 21 to recognize the spring sports and to celebrate the successes of the basketball, cheerleading, NJROTC, and swim teams. Tickets were sold for one dollar the Tuesday before the pep rally and the day of the pep rally during all lunches.
The varsity basketball team, currently 32-0 and set to compete in playoffs, as well as the swim team, are district champions. The cheerleading team brought home many victories from their season and is currently 15th in the nation.
“This has been a history-making season for us,” head cheer coach Katy White said. “We qualified for and competed at UCA Nationals for the first time in program history, ultimately ranking 15th in the nation, won a district championship for 6A Game Day and Top Fight song across all divisions, and qualified for state finals for only the second time in program history.”
Despite having record-breaking successes this year, White said that her team will strive for more and keep pushing forward.
“Expect to see us keep pushing for even more success,” White said. “Our biggest goal is to land in the top 10 at state next year.”
The NJROTC team was also one of the teams recognized at the pep rally, as the team qualified for the state championship and has done well at their previous competitions.
“The NJROTC unit here at Clements High School has sustained superior performance in all areas of our drills and academics and physical fitness to the point where we qualified for the state championship in our first qualifier this year back in September,” NJROTC Chief Jason Gorsuch said. “We’ve finished first, second, or third place in every drill meet we’ve been in overall, but we finished first in a lot of disciplines.”
With the NJROTC team competing at the state championship that weekend, Gorsuch has high hopes for his team.
“I hope we win first place for sure and the kids have been working really hard to win first place,” Gorsuch said. “They’ve practiced multiple days a week for multiple hours. They’ve been grinding out there in the heat of the summertime, the cold of the winter that came through, sometimes inclement weather in the way of rains we had to move indoors.”
The last team that was cheered on during the pep rally was the Stars dance team, who just began their competition season.
“Last year, we got first runner-up in regionals,” junior varsity dancer Krishna Nair said. “This year, the goal is to win in everything: team lyrical, team contemporary, and team modern.”
Last week, the dance team had a showcase of solos and ensembles from the varsity team on Wednesday and a competition later that week.
“Competitions are very stressful, but at the same time, they’re amazing,” Nair said. “We did really well at the FBISD contest last time.”
Note: As of 2/28/24, the varsity basketball team is 32-1, and they ended their season playing against Seven Lakes High School in round 3 of the playoffs. Kayla Fu won the state championship for swimming, coming in second place in the girls’ 100 butterfly. The NJROTC team placed fifth overall at the state championship, and Stars won first place in Contemporary and Modern and third place in Lyrical dance.
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Photographers: Juhi Godbole and Karen Wei
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