With sideline cheer ending, South’s cheer team is preparing for the competitive cheer season. Head coach Ashley Gerbi is getting ready to make the switch.

“Varsity tryouts happened in early November,” Gerbi said. “We have our first competition on Dec. 9 and it’s Varsity only.”

The cheer team tends to keep the same roster during the switch from competitive to sideline.

“Typically sideline and competitive are the same team. However, we allow new athletes to come and try out if they want to join,” Gerbi said. “Typically those athletes will go on JV unless they are super talented and meet the varsity requirements,”

South cheer has been working hard to stay in shape during the break in between seasons.

“Every Tuesday we have tumbling and we practice our skills,” Chiara Fallone ’25 said. “We work on flips, back walkovers, anything that you need to work on.”

Chiara does both sideline cheer and competitive cheer for South’s JV team.

“I like sideline cheer better because you get to cheer for the football boys and get a front side view of everything happening,” Fallone said, “We also get to do the homecoming game with Varsity.”

Gabby Klautky is a member of South’s Varsity cheer team and has been doing cheer for three years.

“I think sideline cheer is more fun because of team bonding,” Klautky ’25 said.

Competitive cheer can put more stress on cheerleaders than sideline cheer due to it requiring athletes to invest more of their time.

“We have to learn 3 rounds and clean all of them,” Klautky said. “You have to have certain skills or you’ll be taken out of the round.”

Typically in a cheer competition each round is a different exercise. Round one tends to be motion, round two is skills and motion, and round three is stunting and tumbling.

“There’s a lot of potential with the team we have this year,” Klautky said. “I’m excited to see what’s going to come from our team this season.”