The Long County Blue Tide will welcome a sport back after a two-year hiatus as the competition cheer team is preparing to flip into the 2024 season.
The team will feature a new coach in Haley Scofield, but her experience coaching competition cheer stretches far beyond her first year at Long County High School. She has seen a lot of variety in the girls’ experience with competitive cheer, even in the short amount of time she has been with the team.
“We have a little bit of both,” Scofield said. “We have some who are super experienced and do all stars on the side and have done this program before. And then we have some girls who haven’t cheered a day in their life.”
With the Blue Tide not hosting a competition cheer team in two years, some impacts might be felt by the team this year. However, Scofield says this is not the case especially with a few girls on the team that were on the team in 2021.
“Because a lot of the girls do tumbling classes and all stars outside of school, I wouldn’t say it will make a huge impact,” Scofield said. “I think maybe with it being a new program, there will obviously be some trials, but overall it should go well.”
When the school had a competition cheer team in the past, it was always very successful, winning several competitions, consistently competing for region championships, and advancing to the state competition several times, including placing in the top 10 in 2019.
Scofield is very confident that the team will advance to the state competition in 2024 and that mostly has to do with the preparations they have made in the summer.
“They are just a great group of girls and I think through my experience, the choreographer I was able to bring in, the music producers I was able to bring in, all these things are going to help our chances,” she said. “And the girls are hungry for it because of it being the first year back.”
Despite her experience coaching competition cheer, this is Scofield’s first foray into the high school level of cheer coaching. She said the biggest hangup is trying to tone down how much the girls are allowed to perform and show on the mat at competitions.
“Just rules. There’s a lot more rules,” Scofield said. “There’s a lot of things we aren’t allowed to do because of safety concerns from the state. We can’t do certain stunts on the mat that I am used to being able to do with my girls. And the plus side of that is that the girls are already able to do those things, but just aren’t allowed to do it because of those rules.”
Scofield is very excited for all the girls on the team, even the less experienced ones, as she is confident they will all make an impact for the team this year.
The first competition for the team this year will be September 14 in the Heart of GA Cheer Classic at Washington County High School.