This past Sun., Jan. 15, the Niles West Co-Ed Cheerleading team held their annual invite for the fourth year in a row. The NWN had a chance to sit down with senior captain Christina Lee and junior cheerleaders Leanza Diaz and Alyssa Poole to get their thoughts on the results of the invite.

NWN: What was the most memorable experience for you?

Lee: Being that this was one of the last performances of the season and the last Niles West invite, it was a lot of fun and comfortable competing in a place that I’m so familiar with.

Poole: I’m really proud of what we did so far this season. We worked really hard to get where we are right now. This is the first time Niles West cheer won first place in our conference meet. We cannot wait for sectionals.

NWN: What do you believe could’ve gone better for you guys?

Lee: I think that we did really well and had great energy, but there is always room for improvement. Although we hit all of our stunts and performed with confidence, I feel that there are minor things to clean up before sectionals.

NWN: How was the turnout from each school?

Lee: There were 50 schools here at Niles West, and it ran really smoothly and was organized well. Each team had great sportsmanship and even all of the coaches made comments on how they enjoyed it because it was well organized.

NWN: Did you guys perform as well as you had hoped?

Diaz: In all honesty, I believe that we performed well, but there are a few mistakes that we need to touch up and fix. Being that they are simple mistakes, it’ll be easy to fix before sectionals.

NWN: How did you guys end up placing/scoring?

Diaz: We placed third with a score of 77.5. It was a great experience to cheer at our home school and to see all of the other teams perform.

Mike McKay contributed to this story.