During halftime of the boys’ varsity basketball game against Blue Valley Southwest, cheerleaders Alivia Ozbun, Natalie Ovington, Gabriella Newbound, Amarah Qureshi, Gabby Milsap, Addi Smith and Olivia Mastenbrook were recognized for cheer senior night.
Senior and co-captain of BVNW cheer squad Alivia Ozbun said she cherishes the team bonding experiences.
“We just have a ton of great bonding opportunities with the team, [and] are very close as a team, so we’re able to do fun activities together,” Ozbun said.
Similarly, senior Natalie Ovington mentioned that her favorite memories included the times she spent with her team.
“Being able to go to every football game and traveling, especially away games, [is] really fun,” Ovington said, “Just being on the bus with your team, it’s always super fun and exciting.
Ovington said she finds it sad and exciting that her time on the cheer squad is nearing its end.
“I really love cheering but it’s also exciting. I’ll be graduating and kind of moving on,” Ovington said, “It’s a new chapter in my life, so it’s definitely very bittersweet,”
Similarly, Ozbun found that she was sad, but excited, especially since she has been waiting to be a senior and participate in fun opportunities.
Head Coach Madison Llewellyn said Ovington and Ozbun are both assets to the team.
“Natalie Ovington has been such a blessing for our program. She showed up at tryouts two years ago and wasn’t somebody I had heard about before trying out and really had a skill set that I knew would do well on our team,” she said.
Llewellyn mentioned that Ozbun pushes her teammates to be a winning team.
“Alivia is a fantastic athlete, she was pretty reserved for her first two years on the team. I don’t really feel like I heard her speak much, but I think that she took the experience that she gained from being a part of a team that won a state championship her sophomore year, and really pushed everybody to live up to that standard and, and remembered all the things that those seniors taught her,” she said.
As co-captain of the cheer squad, Ozbun said she was able to inspire her teammates to be the best they can be.
“It was exciting to just know that I got to like, lead my team in a different way besides just being a teammate, and there were more opportunities and more pressure put on me but it’s fun being a captain,” Ozbun said.
Llewellyn said that each senior class brings a different element to the team.
“I think that this senior class worked really hard to make sure that everybody across all grades was brought into our program, which is really important having a smaller team here,” Llewellyn said. “We still have so much of the season left, but I think it’s kind of hard for me to feel anything right now because we still have several months left, but I will certainly miss these girls once they graduate.”
Ovington tells the underclassmen in cheer to push themselves, because cheer is a tough sport.
“It’s definitely a very hard [sport] to be a part of, especially during state season I think everyone being mentally strong, is definitely something that like everyone could work on because we’re all physically capable,” Ovington said, “It’s [the] mental aspect of pushing through hard practices, especially when it’s long hours.”
