North’s varsity cheer team placed tenth in state on Feb. 3 in Bloomington, Illinois. They met and exceeded their goals for their season. They accomplished many things including winning the Xperience Chicago camp in June, becoming DuKane Conference champions, placing third in sectionals, and making it to day two in their state competition, putting them in the top 10 in Illinois.
For the first time in her five-year career at North, head varsity cheer coach Adrianne Noworul led the team to day two of state. The team has been practicing since April, using every game they cheered at as a practice to get better and meet their goal.
“This year we had such a hard working group of people, everyone changed their mindset this year to push themselves more than the year before. Everyone stepped up when we needed to,” Noworul said.
Making it to day two of state requires getting top 10 out of all the teams on the first day, which means their performance must be well practiced, and all the teammates have to be dedicated to the team’s success.
“Their day one performance was as perfect as it could have been,” said Noworul. “This team is special.”
Last year the cheer team didn’t make it as far as they hoped, so the upperclassmen stepped up into important leadership roles this year. Everybody helped to guide the incoming freshmen.
“We truly do have a family atmosphere, always working on bonding and feeling comfortable with each other,” said Noworul.
This season was special for many reasons. Besides meeting their goal, the team felt more recognition for their accomplishments than in seasons past. Noworul feels that cheer is often underrated since they are on the sidelines for other sports. This year, the cheer team got the credit that they are constantly working to achieve.
“Having conference at home brought a lot of support and it was nice for people to see how we compare to other teams at conference,” said Noworul. “It was nice to have support and credibility to our program because of how hardworking of athletes we have.”
