Com­pet­i­tive Cheer Kicks Off Sea­son

MISHAWAKA—The com­pet­i­tive cheer team started their sea­son on Jan. 23 at the Wild­cat In­vite. Head Coach Lucy Phipps is in her sec­ond sea­son as the team's head coach, her third sea­son over­all with the team, and has seen ma­jor im­prove­ments over the past two sea­sons. This in­cluded end­ing last sea­son with three of the four top scor­ing per­for­mances in pro­gram his­tory at the NAIA North­west Qual­i­fier, where they fin­ished eighth. At the Wild­cat In­vite on Jan. 23, the Pi­lots scored 68.73 which was the eighth-best per­for­mance in pro­gram his­tory. 

“I think the short­ened sea­son has im­pacted the team in a pos­i­tive way,” Phipps said. “They are very ea­ger to show that we are get­ting bet­ter every sin­gle day.” 

In ad­di­tion to the short­ened sea­son, COVID-19 has af­fected the team in other ways. 

“It has af­fected us a lot be­cause it has shrunk our prac­tice time to just two hours,” Phipps said. “We also have to take fif­teen min­utes in be­tween rou­tines. We still are show­ing im­prove­ments and will be ready for our com­pe­ti­tions that we have com­ing up.” 

The com­pet­i­tive cheer team will be in com­pe­ti­tion next at the MVNU In­vi­ta­tional on Feb. 5. For more up­dates on the cheer team, visit www.bupi­lots.com.