When the lights fade from a Friday night football game and after the fans leave the gym after a Tuesday night boys basketball game, there are some who continue to cheer. The cheerleading team, after bringing pep and cheer to the sidelines, for both the football team in the fall and boys’ basketball in the winter, have a season of their own.

And this season they have succeeded better than ever before.

At the CIAC State Competition on Sat. March 8, the team took home second place, behind Stamford and ahead of Fitch High School from Groton, beating out 18 other teams in the coed division. They are now advancing to the regional competition which will take place March 22.

“States is, most of the time, the last hurrah for us, so we prepare ourselves to leave it all on the mat, let everyone know that we have put so much hard work into the season,” co-captain Emma Mikesh ’14 said.

These preparations include scheduled practices three days a week and additional time that the team decides to put in to perfect their routine.

“Most people don’t realize but we actually start working on our competition routine way back in October,” co-captain Annie Raifaisen ’14 said.  “And we don’t stop until our last competition in March.”

However, the hard work paid off with the second place win and the team is not done just yet.

“Regionals will only have the top three teams from each division from each state competing so the teams we compete against will be teams we’ve never seen,” team member Alexa Davis ’15 said.

They will continue to practice in preparation and perfect the two-and-a-half minute routine by nailing all of the stunts and formation changes.

“When people say it looks easy, I tell them try holding your breathe and running around in circles,” Mikesh added.  “And you will get the right representation of how it feels to run a routine ‘full out,’ which we do at least once at each practice.”