Melissa Vantine is a Sophomore on the Varsity Cheer team and the Competition Cheer team.

 Vantine loves being around her teammates. While performing in front of the entire student section at football games is not for everyone, Vantine doesn’t mind. “It’s not stressful for me just because it’s a fun environment,”

 Her favorite part about cheer is the Competitions. Doing stunts while competing is very dangerous. Even though the cheerleaders make it look effortless, a lot can go wrong. “It does take a lot of trust because it’s really easy to get hurt,” Vantine mentioned. 

Her favorite memory with the team is when they won the District Championship this October. The team faced some adversity with the rise of illness, “It was really hard because half of our team was sick,” Vantine mentioned. She and her other teammates were concerned about the upcoming district finals not going as well as they had hoped.“We were worried that we wouldn’t do our best,” She expressed. Yet when the time came to compete all of their hard work had paid off and they won. 

The team is now training vigorously for regionals, with the hope of taking home another title. “We have had morning practice every day this week,” Vantine remarked. She has now gone on to make Dulles second team All-District. Make sure to support the Pride at their Regional Tournament!