Cheer camp points way for future Wildcats
BRAWLEY — Aspiring Wildcat cheerleaders got a taste of what the Brawley Union High School cheer program is like on Saturday during the 2019 Future Wildcat Cheer Camp.
Held inside the BUHS gymnasium, a total of 55 kids, ages 5 to 14 years old, worked alongside members of the BUHS’ varsity competition team on motion technique, stunting, jumping, tumbling and, of course, cheering.
The nearly five-hour camp culminated with a performance by camp goers for family and friends.
Saturday’s camp was the first youth cheer camp the school has put on into about five years, Coach Megan Griggs said.
The entire BUHS cheer program is made up of approximately 75 students and five teams: freshmen, junior varsity and varsity sideline teams, plus a game day competition team and the varsity competition team.
The competition team won the school’s first co-ed CIF-San Diego Section championship in December 2018.
This qualified them for nationals, which took place in February at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Fla.
Competing in the Large Varsity Non-Tumbling category, the Brawley squad made it to the finals and finished ninth in the nation before about 20,000 spectators.
The team plans once again to qualify for the national competition. Saturday’s $45 per youth fee at the camp served as the team’s first and biggest fundraiser of the year toward their anticipated Florida trip.
“It’s quite an expensive trip,” said Griggs, who enters her third year as coach. “We had some of the Barbara Worth (Junior High) kids who are going to be here in the next year or two, and then some of the little kids who have a long ways to go. But we hoped they would come and just have a lot of fun — all while supporting this team and their goals for the season.”