On Feb. 1, WJ’s pompon team won first place overall and the first place captain’s award in the Division III County Competition, where schools from all around the county competed at Richard Montgomery High School.

“Winning [the competition] was very exciting. All [of] our hard work since summer finally concluded and led to the win,” said captain and junior Rachel Allen.

But in order for the team to be successful and do well in competition, extensive preparation was necessary. Although many students only see the team perform during football or basketball games, the pompons put in many additional hours of practice in order to prep for competition season. According to team captains Allen and senior Dani Schapiro, the pompons use football season as practice for competitions. Senior Vicki Yamasaki also serves as co-captain.

“We practice choreographing [and] we practice performing in front of a crowd,” said Allen. “We run every day before practice….Every once in a while we’ll have fitness days.”

At competitions, the judges look for and critique the routine’s choreography, level of difficulty, the intensity and energy of the routine, and the accuracy of the motions, in addition to how in sync the team is and how neat and well-memorized the routine is. There are multiple sections to each routine, including drumline, lyrical, kick line, pom, jazz and hip hop.

The past couple of years have been chaotic in terms of previous coaches’ varying levels of involvement and effectiveness.

“We got a new coach this year and she brought a lot of new ideas and background [experience],” said Schapiro, in reference to the squad’s current coach, Kaleigh Ayton.

Ayton previously danced on Clarksburg High School’s Poms team and coached the Clarksburg Sports Association Poms for many years. According to Allen, at practice Ayton is very serious and does whip the girls into shape, but will joke around with the girls sometimes too.

“She does not sugar coat corrections which is nice, and all the girls love her,” said Allen.

The new coaching style that Ayton brought to the team, supplemented by her years of personal experience and knowledge of coaching, in addition to her mother’s experience as a Poms coach, enabled the squad to start off the new year with a new mindset and a fresh start.

“Everything she knew about Poms that she brought to the team really helped rebuild this entire team, [which was] what we needed,” said Schapiro.