The award-winning Spiritline team is one of the pride and joys of Xavier College Preparatory. Composed of two teams, Pom and Cheer, Spiritline is a great way to express one’s artistic persona. 

The Pom team focuses on dance techniques while the Cheer team focuses on tumbling, stunts and performances other than dancing. 

Spiritline works long, hard hours to maintain their award-winning presence. At the start of the season, the Spiritline Gators “do lots of team bonding, in addition to brushing up on individual skills,” said sophomore Lizzy Lamprey. They normally practice during first period, in addition to after-school and morning practices. During these practices, routines to upbeat pop songs are perfected. 

Routines differ between Pom and Cheer. For Pom, the girls do tricks that are more like dance techniques, such as quadruple turns and aerials. They do one full Pom routine and one jazz routine. 

Cheer deals with more tumbling tricks, such as back handsprings and back tucks. They compete with one full cheer routine with the whole team and one “five-man” routine. This routine is mainly full of stunts, like pyramids, and generally more complicated stunts.

The hard work always pays off at competitions. Junior Sabrina Le, a member of the Pom team, said, “We work all year towards competition. The best feeling in the world is finishing our routine and knowing all of our hard work has paid off!” 

Routines are performed at multiple competitions throughout the year. These competitions will usually begin in November or early December and they include the qualifiers for the AIA States and USA Nationals. 

On March 6, the Spiritline girls competed at States. Their five-man stunt routine won first place, and Pom and Cheer both placed in the top 10. 

Not only is Spiritline a way to grow stronger in one’s dancing and cheering abilities, but it is also an opportunity to meet new people and to have fun. They are all one big family and are always there for each other no matter what happens. 

Freshman Joslyn Jenkins, a member of the cheer team, said, “Being able to be on Spiritline gave me so much to look forward to every day. We are such a close team. I couldn’t ask for anything better for them, and I truly consider them my sisters.” Being on Spiritline is a privilege that many get to experience, and the memories made on the team are memories that will, without a doubt, stick with each Gator forever.