After enjoying an outstanding volleyball season that included her first all-Eastern Missouri Conference award last fall, Makayla Beaver was anxious to start participating in her second favorite sport …
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After enjoying an outstanding volleyball season that included her first all-Eastern Missouri Conference award last fall, Makayla Beaver was anxious to start participating in her second favorite sport – cheerleading.
The Montgomery County senior is back for her fourth and final year with the school’s basketball cheerleading squad. She’s the only senior on the team.
“I used to play basketball, so it’s kind of a way for me to still be able to cheer on my old teammates as they go up and score,” Beaver said. “I just love watching basketball, both boys and girls. It’s my favorite.”
Beaver leads a young MCHS cheerleading group that has three sophomores and two freshmen. Sophomores Peyton McGough, Myla Woltman and Jaylynn Zerr and freshman Madison Bolin and Rebecca Schulze are the other cheerleaders.
“They’re all so very young,” Beaver said.
Beaver and McGough are the only returners from last year’s cheerleading squad, which also had six members.
“We have a couple of new girls, so we’ve been focusing on technique and cheers and how things are supposed to look and how we want them to look as a whole team,” fourth-year coach Miranda Craft said. “We just have a lot of fun when we do it.”
McGough said she’s happy to come back to the basketball cheerleading team for another year.
“I love cheer,”McGough said. “It’s my heart and soul.”
McGough, Zerr and Bolin also were on the football cheerleading team last fall. Zerr said cheering for the basketball team is much different than cheering on the football squad.
“With basketball, it’s like inside and it’s all enclosed,” Zerr said. “You still have to be super loud, but it’s easier for people to hear you and it’s air-conditioned. In football, it could be 100 degrees one day and 20 the next. It’s very different as far as the weather goes.”
Bolin said she’s thrilled that she earned a spot on the basketball cheerleading team as a freshman. She has been a basketball cheerleader since seventh grade.
“Basketball is definitely my favorite,” Bolin said. “I have more freedom and I get to perform a lot more stunts.”
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