East Islip varsity cheerleaders perform in the Suffolk small schools...

East Islip varsity cheerleaders perform in the Suffolk small schools competition at Connetquot on Saturday. Credit: James Escher

It’s not easy being the first to perform, especially when the oncoming competition is equally fierce.

Just ask the East Islip cheerleading squad. Walking up to the mat, bright and early Saturday morning, the girls were anxious.

But they exuded nothing but confidence.

Their attitude, loud cheers and difficult stunts led them to victory in the Small Division II section at the Connetquot varsity meet.

“The other teams are so good,” Natalie Stergakos said. “It means a lot more to us getting first in such a difficult division. Everyone is great at stunting and tumbling so being in first place is a real accomplishment.”

This year, East Islip moved down from the Medium division, but the move wasn’t easy. In such a competitive division, they had to up their skills, perform harder stunts and cheer louder.

The Redman started the season off like last year, coming close to first place but not quite pulling it off. However, as the season progressed, so did the team.  

“Last year, we were consistently in second place,” Alexa Sortino said. “Moving to the small division was different but we’re doing really well. This season, we’ve been hitting consistently. Last week, we got first place and we’re hoping to continue the streak.”

The Redman added tougher tricks to their routine before the meet. They included several new high-to-highs, which is where the flyers go up, perform a stunt like a twirl or arabesque, and stay in the air, instead of squatting back down.

“We added that move in today and we stuck it,” Stergakos said. “We worked on it all week and the fact that we hit was amazing. It put us on cloud nine for the rest of the routine.”

East Islip will have to keep that energy for the next several weeks. There are two Suffolk meets left but the biggest upcoming event is the National High School Cheerleading Championship held at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida starting on Feb. 8.

This will be the first East Islip squad to attend Nationals in the school’s history.

Needless to say, the girls are expecting to stay on Cloud 9 until the big day.

“The whole excitement of getting to Nationals is really energizing everyone and driving us to do better,” Jolie Lenox said.

Sortino continued, “We’re making history. We have to hit the hardest part of our routines and just breathe. We’ll keep the winning streak alive and bring it into Nationals.”

Large Division

Mount Sinai needed a pick-me-up.  

The Mustangs started the season off consecutively in second place. Until last week.

After a mishap and an injury, the girls had a bad routine and ended up in last place.

Mt. Sinai wasn’t going to let that happen again.

After completing a flawless routine, the Mustangs grabbed first place in the Large Division.

“We’ve been declining a little bit,” Atalia Fragoletti said. “We had a bad competition but we aren’t going to let it keep us down. We worked our butts off and we killed it today. We’re going to kill it for the rest of the season.”

After an intense week of practice the Mustangs came back strong.

There were shaky moments in two stunts but the Mustangs stayed in the air. They executed their tumbles and had the crowd chanting with them.

Like East Islip, their goal is to maintain until Nationals. With short-term memories, Mt. Sinai will put the past behind them and gallop forward.

“We definitely had some setbacks after regionals,” Isabella Takacs said. “Last week was really a wake up call for us. We need to build our confidence up in practice and maintain that in our meets. Our goal is to win Nationals and we have the routine to do it.”

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