“Being a dual sport athlete this year was definitely a challenge. Most days I would have five hours of practice between cheer and gymnastics. This was not only physically tiring, but mentally tiring as well as I had to maintain good grades. The biggest challenge was that some of the competitions were on the same days, but if I could compete at both, I did. Sometimes I had to miss the cheer competitions to compete with my gymnastics team because it was my primary sport. This was hard because I felt like I was letting my cheer team down— especially when we were already short on girls. As much work as it was, I enjoyed competing in both sports last year, and getting to spend time with both teams made it all worth it.” – junior Sophia Markley