On Jan. 14, the Clements Cheer team competed at the UIL State Spirit competition at Fort Worth. The team ended finals by placing 17th overall and 12th in the crowd leading division. I talked to senior Synnove Lawrence about her experience in cheer this year as well as the competition. 

“As a cheerleader it’s our job to keep everyone else’s spirits high in the midst of all the craziness, which has been especially hard as this has impacted every single person in a hard way.” said Lawrence.

This year was especially different for the team because of the pandemic, which prompted some changes to the way things ran.

“Practice is just as fun, however, when one person gets even a minor cold, the environment can shut down and become sad in a day.” said Lawrence.

But even with the darkness of the pandemic looming in the back, Lawrence spoke about how the team was able to become more unified this season.

Lawrence said “Aside from the covid scares, the team has really united and become close throughout the year making this a great year to be in cheer.”

Though with the pandemic there were many differences in preparation for the competition this year than from years past. The main difference this year was time.

 “Previously we had months to perfect our routine, but since we started so much later we had to work extra hard for a shorter amount of time.” said Lawrence. 

Ever since the competition began in 2015, this year was the first time the Clements cheerleaders qualified for the finals round of competition, where they placed in the top 20! In fact Clements was the only school from FBISD to qualify for finals, so make sure to congratulate our lady rangers! 

“Being the only school to qualify really solidified just how well we did this year and it was so rewarding!” said Lawrence.

Despite the struggles the team faced this year, they were able to overcome adversity and were able to come to a successful end.

“I’m so very happy that we were able to compete as a team and have that one thing from my senior year be semi normal.” said Lawrence.