If going to a basketball or football game throughout the season, one may believe the players outshine the cheerleaders.

Though they do their best to keep the audience and team alike pumped up and energized during the games, their real time to shine is during cheerleading competitions.

So far this year, the team has done well, placing first at each of the three tournaments they participated in.

Junior Lydia Piero has been a cheerleader since her freshman year and continues to go to competitions this year.

“[The cheerleaders have done] really well,” she said. “We’ve come in first every competition we’ve been at, and we’ve beat out some pretty good teams, like Jackson.”

Even though the girls have done well and beaten Hoover’s rival, Jackson, the competitions are not all fun and games, according to Miss Tiffany Walker, who coaches the team along with Miss Kristen Waseity.

“[Competitions are] stressful,” Walker said. “Especially this year now that we’ve won first every competition so far, the girls want to say they’re undefeated and keep it going.”

Walker also said she really likes coaching the girls.

“I enjoy the relationships I have with [them],” she said. “They’re fun to work with and even though they work hard, they still make me laugh.”

Piero agreed and said she loves to cheer and feels a strong bond with her teammates.

“Everyone’s really encouraging and works together, which helps us come together to win,” she said.

Along with the competitions at other schools, the cheerleaders recently hosted an exhibition here at Hoover. This means that while the team hosted the competition, they did not participate in it.

Piero said her favorite thing about the tournaments is “the competitive atmosphere and the suspense waiting to see who  wins.”

According to Walker, the girls this year are similar to those on the competition team in the years previous.

“[These are] the girls who want to compete.”