Small team, big effort: St. Edward cheerleaders advance to sectionals
Unique is an apt word that describes the St. Edward competitive cheerleading team.
After a recent championship performance in Huntley, instead of celebrating, the Green Wave hit the books.
"Every time we go to a competition at least a few of the girls are working together on homework," said Green Wave coach Kelley McDonald, whose team competes at the DeKalb sectional Saturday, Jan. 31, for a chance to advance to the state finals.
"At Huntley we had several hours to wait between our performance and awards. While the girls were waiting for awards, a few of them were studying together and a couple girls were helping a teammate with math. Instead of watching the rest of the competition or eating lunch, they were holed up in one of the classrooms working on math."
The after-hours help continued after the competition was over when junior Allison Stratman continued to help that same teammate with her math studies.
"This is a pretty common thing for our girls. They spend a lot of time studying at these competitions," said McDonald, who noted the majority of the girls on the team are high honors students and six of the eight team members are academic all-conference recipients.
"Every person on our team is important," Stratman added. "We help each other out any way we can."
The uniqueness doesn't stop there. In only its second year as a program, the Green Wave roster is made up of eight girls who come from extremely varied backgrounds.
Senior co-captain Carly Ogletree also is co-captain of the debate team and represented St. Edward at a national debate competition in Kansas City, Mo., last June (she competed in two national debate competitions). Senior co-captain Monica Klee is founder of the St. Edward Book Club. Stratman, whose sister, Jordyn, is one of the coaches on the team, plays softball at St. Edward (defensive MVP) and with the Northern Illinois Lightning travel team. She also was named St. Edward's female student-athlete of the year for the 2013-2014 school year.
Sophomore Amanda Drobek is a Level 10 competitive gymnast, while sophomore Alexi Linneman is an award-winning 4H competitor, 4H vice president and Hereford Queen. Senior Alecia Elam is in the Youth Leadership Academy and is heavily involved in community service. Other team members include senior Sophia Kilcran and junior Makenzi Brown.
Several of the girls on the team also coach younger girls in Crusader cheer, St. Edward's feeder cheer program.
"These girls are extremely bright and well-rounded," McDonald said. "When one of them struggles with anything such as grades, family situations or typical teenage stuff, they definitely are there to help each other. They are very close."
Ogletree noted the team's closeness has helped produce positive results during competitions.
"I'm probably closer to these girls on the team than anyone else in the world because of how much time we spend with each other," she said. "If one of us is having a tough time in practice we all feel something and want to work harder the next time. With how close this team is it makes it easier to stay motivated and push through the ups and downs of the season."
For St. Edward, this season has been all about the ups. At Huntley, the Green Wave won the small-school division title and in the process defeated 2013 state champion Dwight.
St. Edward plays off the school nickname in its competition routine, basing it around a "Wave" theme that features several well-known beach-themed songs such as "Wipeout" and "Surfin' USA." The team also uses a green surfboard gimmick.
"It's a big surfboard that says 'Wave' on it," McDonald explained. "That's been a lot of fun. The crowd loves it when one of the girls carries the sign. It's a fun energy."
Stratman credited McDonald and her sister for their coaching acumen. Jordyn Stratman, a former Larkin High School cheerleader who also participated in competitive Cheer USA events, is the choreographer.
"We have some amazing tumblers and our routine is a lot of fun," said Allison Stratman.
St. Edward knows the stakes will be high Saturday in DeKalb. If the Green Wave finishes in the Top 5 at the sectional, it will head to the state finals competition in Bloomington next weekend.
"Since we haven't been a program that long, that makes us even more motivated to keep improving quickly and keep this going," said Stratman. "It's tough only having eight girls, but we like it because we're so close to each other."
"We want it pretty bad," Ogletree added. "We know what we have to do. It's scary to think about going out there and doing it, because it's two minutes and you're done. I think we're more confident than we've ever been. As corny as it sounds, we have to go out there and believe in ourselves 100 percent."
McDonald has no doubts her team will be ready Saturday.
"We have a very small team even for the division we are in," she said. "They have to work twice as hard and that's made them very close. When they started, there wasn't a competitive cheerleading team before. They just had football season. They would like to say, 'We went to state.' They want to leave a legacy here."