By Larissa Santos – Staff Reporter

Jonathan Law’s cheerleading team is back for another season.

Th team is ready to get back in motion by catching the freshmen up to speed. In practices, they have been trying new and different things to get their team ready for competition.

“We have been doing a lot of side cheers and practicing hard to improve our skills,” junior Megan Mower said.

Since they have a young team, they have been trying to improve themselves.  Members went to a camp at Western Connecticut State University over the summer to help the team bond and to try new and different things.

“My plans this year are to take more tumbling classes to get better,” sophomore Marina Callahan said.

There are only 13 girls on the team this year, which is down from last year.

“We still want more people to join and welcome everyone,” Mower said.

Every girl on the team has joined for different reasons. Some wanted to make new friends while others wanted to join their old ones.

“I had joined because my friends wanted me to and told me it would be fun,” sophomore Ashlee Chiaraluce said.

The freshmen seem to fit in well and are catching up to the speed with the older girls. The team is really close this year.

“I feel like fitting in was easy and the older girls are really nice to us,” freshman Kaitlyn Griffin said.

Because they are such a small team, they don’t have to fund raise as much as they usually do. They fund raise at the Bridgeport Flyer, sponsor T-shirts at football games, and continue to do their pizza prize fundraiser.

Later in the year, the team will go to the Top Gun competition. Three girls from Law went All-State as a result of this competition last year.

“This year, we are trying to get four girls to go to All-State,” head coach Bonnie Etense said.

Etense had been a cheerleading coach for eight years. She has coached college and high school teams, but she said Law is her favorite because she loves the team’s spirit.

“I wanted to be a coach because I love building relationships with the girls,” Etense said. “I am glad I became a coach since I have learned so many lessons being a coach and taught these girls [lessons] as well.”