Poms has had one of its busiest seasons yet. With twelve athletes on varsity and nineteen athletes on junior varsity, the team has high expectations for this season.
The increase in interest in poms was unexpected and has led to wondering why there has been such an increase in interest.
“I didn’t know in the past that there weren’t as many girls,” coach Dena Maye recalled. “I think there are a lot of students who didn’t want to necessarily do a sport and found an activity that they could fit into. I also think since we don’t have a dance team, poms spoke to those students.”
What has been interesting is how many students who are doing poms this school year have previously never participated in poms. Students have many different reasons why they have decided to try the sport.
“I wanted to do a sport and it seemed fun to use poms,” sophomore Rachael Ramos said. “It seemed like fun to be in the environment.”
Poms does not compete, which can help make the sport less stressful for students that want to try something new. They perform during the half times of Holy Cross basketball games. Junior varsity performs first followed by varsity. During the first performance of the season, many students went to the game to cheer on the poms team.
The creation of the routine poms will perform differs between the varsity and junior varsity teams.
“On varsity, the captain is choreographer. She creates routines for varsity,” Maye explained. “For junior varsity, I create the first routine but I open up to get ideas from the girls. Anybody who wants to choreograph, I give them the opportunity.”
Junior Hannah Wilson was the captain for varsity this year.
“It was a great accomplishment, however it can be time consuming, but overall very rewarding,” Wilson described her experience.
Many people confuse poms with cheerleading, but the two are not the same. Poms is more dance based while cheerleading has more to do with gymnastics.
“To me poms is the movement of your body or dance with poms,” Wilson detailed.
Poms can be described in many different ways. Students who appreciate music and dance enjoy this activity.
Ramos likes this sport, “because you get to dance, jump around, and do choreographies.”
Varsity and junior varsity both have practices after school on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
“Typically practice goes with a debrief, stretch, either learn a routine or practice a routine and consistently practice it,” Wilson shared.
Practicing the routine many times helps to create a great performance and the students on the team have that as their goal.
