While most North Harford students were doing their homework and catching up on tv, the Hawk’s cheerleading team was just starting their night at the Howard County Fall 2017 Autumn Invitational.

    North Harford Cheer team spent weeks preparing for this competition that happened on  October 18. The squad was put up against 17 other teams from all around Maryland to show off their skills, and that is exactly what they did.

    Out of 17 teams North Harford place 7th among some of the best cheer teams that were present. According to senior Haleigh Ayers, “We practiced really hard for a couple months, because it was our first competition and it was really late so we had a lot of time to work on it. There were a lot of good teams there and we beat 3 out of the good teams that we didn’t think we were gonna beat.”

    Before the competition occurred the cheerleaders spend their time as a team to get pumped for the competition. “On the way to the competition we always play music and right before we go in, we play Boondocks, that is our pump up song that gets us in the North Harford feel,” said senior Lizzy Fenner, “It such a high energy atmosphere that it pumps you up and gets your adrenaline pumping so fast because we only had 5 minutes ad the routine is usually 2 min 30 sec so it was all really fast.”

    Although North Harford’s cheer team did very well they did hit a bump in the road when their music stopped halfway through their routine. However, thanks to the coaches and the audience counting out the steps the cheer team still managed to finish their routine and placed very well.

    As said by Fenner, “Together we’re strong and in the end the end we beat all.”