Recently, there has been an increasing number of cheerleaders competing on both high school level teams and competitive teams, causing a new level of rivalry in the world of high school cheer. The question is, what skills do competitive cheerleaders bring to the table that someone wouldn’t achieve on a high school team?

Competitive cheer practice can be any where from 2-5 hours and high school cheer practice is 3 hours. High school cheer focuses on competitions rather then actual side line cheer versus competitive cheer which focuses on new and more complex skills for competitions.

Catie Jo Tansey, member of the class of 2019, is a competitive cheerleader for Shockwave All stars in Rockville, Maryland. She also cheers on Linganore’s varsity cheer team.

Tansey said, “On a competitive team you learn the basics and the more advanced skills then you learn in high school, so when you get to high school cheer you are a step above the girls that aren’t on a competitive team.”

The major difference between competitive and high school cheer is that competitive is year round from May to May, and they focus mainly on competing, while high school cheer is only a season long and focuses on games, skills and routines.

A lot of cheerleaders like high school better because they cheer with the same girls they go to school with and they are on a team with familiar people.

“I’ve cheered with girls from all over like Delaware, New Jersey and Virgina. I prefer high school cheer because I’ve known the girls for longer and have formed friendships with them,” said Tansey.

Linganore’s varsity team won states last year after a tough loss at regionals.  The scores from regionals and states were combined last year to determine the highest score and made the Lancers the winners even though they lost at the regionals competition. The scoring this year wasn’t a collection of both scores, it was one score at regionals and another at states. The way to move on to states was to be one of the top teams in the region.

Class of 2021 member Katelyn Bindel cheers at Shockwave All Stars.  She prefers competitive cheer when they are in competition season and high school when they are out of competitive season. Bindel is currently taking a year off to focus on her school work.