Self-proclaimed as “The Hype Squad,” a friend group made up of sophomore boys have attended their class’s basketball games since freshman year, making sure to bring with them the same fan atmosphere and energy found at the varsity level. 

Although new members are continuously added, the original group is compiled of six current sophomores: Brian Nicholson, Yousif Radhi, Sebastian Meriano, Chris Scheibel, Aidan Barnes and Nick Wood. 

According to one of the leaders of the group, sophomore Yousif Radhi, the idea to recreate all that is done during the varsity basketball games was a spontaneous one. 

“One game, Brian [Nicholson] screamed out while the other team was shooting free throws and then I started doing it with him and then everyone else started doing it,” Radhi said.

Justifying his spontaneous screams, sophomore Brian Nicholson, another leader of the group, added that the main goal of this group is to mess with the opponents.  

 “[We] get into the head of the opponent and disrupt them while we are playing defense and [they] are shooting free throws,” Nicholson said.

Along with it being the main goal of the group, both Radhi and Nicholson agree that being able to have fun and mess with the other teams are the best parts about being involved with this group, as well as a main reason as to why this group goes to the basketball games in the first place. 

“Getting the other team annoyed and [having] their fans get pretty annoyed is really fun,” Nicholson said.  

Sophomore Kaden Sorenson, a JV basketball player, agreed that the best part of this group is their ability to mess with the other team, while cheering on the Huskies. 

“During the game when they do chants or cheers, it encourages my teammates and I, and fires us up and it intimidates the opponents,” Sorenson said. 

As far as favorite games go, both Radhi and Nicholson agree that last year’s freshman boys game against Aquinas is a tough one to beat. 

“We were in the [auxiliary gym] so we were a lot louder, because it is not as big and we had a lot of people there,” Radhi said. “So it was a lot of fun and we made the other team mess up a lot and we won.” 

Although this group is known for just being loud overall, both Radhi and Nicholson have favorite individual cheers of their own. On the list of their favorite cheers to do are: singing the ABCs while the other team shoots free throws and saying the chant ‘what are we, we are in your head.’

Given their passion for cheering on BVNW, Sorenson believes all members of  “The Hype Squad” should be spirit leaders in the future.

“They would be great spirit leaders because of their fire and how much they care about our school,” Sorenson said. 

Radhi agrees with Sorenson, saying how it is a goal of his and Nicholson’s to become spirit leaders their junior and/or senior years.  

“Going to the varsity games and seeing the seniors and some juniors starting chants and the whole crowd doing it with them seems like a lot of fun,” Radhi said. “Hopefully one day we will be able to do that and have the whole crowd around us too.”