By Ariana Martinez

On Friday, October 6th, the students of McCaskey High School supported and encouraged their peers at the Pep Rally. You could feel the excitement in the cheers that roared through the crowd, as everyone presenting came out. This special event occurred on the football field during periods nine and ten. The pep rally was a really great way to end the Friday before Homecoming weekend. 

To begin the event the band came marching in, and displayed their great talent right off the bat. Their performance was very memorable. People loved the songs they performed, which consisted of “Leave the Door Open”, “24k Magic”, “Runaway Baby”, “Uptown Funk”, “Thriller”, and others. One student I talked to said they liked how the band “worked swiftly and in sync together.” 

Throughout the rally, many of the McCaskey sports teams got to present themselves walking through the rows of cheerleaders who helped hype everything up. The sports teams included: girls’ tennis, cross country, girls’ field hockey, girls’ volleyball, girls’ soccer, boys’ soccer, and football. Each captain got to talk a bit about their team, and the great students who represent each sport. Riya Thapaliya, a Tenth-grade McCaskey student said, “I liked how they talked so highly of each other”.

Last to walk through and be announced was the homecoming court, consisting of thirteen beloved seniors. These students included Eliani Aybar, Kaelene Burgess, Elaina Foley, Tiyya Geiger, Tania Johnson, Lyra Newswanger, Lily Van Tessel, Seth Brown, Jared Groff, Logan Mcintyre, Christopher Rivera Serrano, Luke Speitel, and Jadon Turenne. But only two of them were chosen on homecoming night. (Congratulations Tiyya and Luke!)

For the show-stopping finale, the cheerleaders got to take a break from cheering and got to be cheered for themselves. They performed some of their normal cheer routines and we even got to experience a new dance. The music was very upbeat, and their moves were really energetic. They’ve practiced the dance plenty prior to the event, finally perfecting it. But no one expects anything less from McCaskey students. 

To wrap up the whole pep rally, some of the cheerleaders chose from the crowd of students in the bleachers to do a challenge. The students got into three groups. They were supposed to split into groups based on their grades, but they all got mixed together, each group having a different amount of different grades. The challenge they ended up doing was a friendly race of leapfrog. Everyone expected group three to win with their amount of athletes but group two exceeded expectations, winning the contest. 

For an inside look at the pep rally, a McCaskey cheerleader, Angelice Martinez spoke to me about her personal experience with the event. “It was exciting, and a little chaotic,” she told me. “Yeah, it could’ve gone better, one of our stunts did not go well, and I feel like a lot of people skipped or tried to leave.”

Also, in the crowd was Kazchmir Marmolejos, an eleventh-grade McCaskey student, who said “It was a bit repetitive from the last three years but I think the band was really nice and I think it’s a great way to show school spirit.”