They are seen flying and tumbling at all TL rallies and games, and this year, the Terra Linda Trojans Cheer Team is going to be taking on the USA High School Spirit Nationals competition during the weekend of March 17-21. The cheerleading team has been participating in many competitions recently and has placed second in all of them. The team takes their work very seriously, which can be seen in the girls’ strength, dedication, and passion.

The past year and a half has been quite the roller coaster for the team. They’ve dealt with the loss of members who either graduated or quit the team, disagreement among their teammates, and the loss of their main coach Andrea Romberger, who left to enlistment in the army. With Andrea gone, the girls are now responsible for making their own routines and choreographing dances, which means more time and commitment has to go into their practices. Donna Romberger (Andrea’s mother and TL student store manager) has taken over managing the team. She states, “It’s a lot of additional work – not having a second person readily available is sad, but at the same time, I’ve sent [Andrea] videos of the girls, she’s watched the routine, she’s sent feedback on it. While I miss her, at the same time, her skills are still there with the group of girls.” While not having a second coach on hand may be difficult at times, Donna feels nothing but total confidence in these girls.

Though they have been through a lot, the girls are thrilled to be going to nationals. When comparing this year to her previous trip to nationals, captain of the cheer team, senior Mei Takeda, says “I feel like this team does a lot better under pressure, like, the other team, two years ago, we kind of fell apart because some people couldn’t take the pressure of being in front of that many people. This season, we’ve had lots of ups and downs, but we still pulled through every single time when we performed; we have good people who do good under pressure.”

When asked about nationals, most of the other girls feel the same excitement. Junior Hayley Grimshaw states, “It’s exciting to be on the team and know that we’re going to nationals because we worked really hard to get where we are now. We’ve improved a lot and spent many hours outside of school prepping, and knowing that all of that work pays off makes it really exciting.” Junior Olivia Ross adds, “It feels really cool to be on the team this year with the opportunity to compete, because last year we really wanted to compete but we didn’t have enough people who were committed, so now we have a bigger group with girls who want to compete.”

It’s clear that there’s a lot of commitment on the team, and despite their challenges, they’ve managed to make the most out of this year. It is obvious that the girls and coach all feel very confident about going to nationals and will hopefully, bring home a win.