English High School student is All-American once again at cheering camp

LYNN – Lynn English cheerleader Kasheyla Womack has the chance to perform her sport in London, albeit a few months after the Olympics.The varsity cheerleader and rising junior was offered a spot to perform in London’s New Year’s Day parade after receiving an All-American title from the Universal Cheerleaders Association (UCA), the international cheerleading body.Womack was one of a select number of girls, and the only one from English, to receive the title while attending a UCA cheer camp last week at Emmanuel College in Boston.”It’s fun,” Womack said of the camp. “It helps us learn things for competition and for our routine, and it’s a good bonding experience for our team.”This is the second year the varsity team from Lynn English has attended the camp, said Coach Christine Galvez, and the second year Womack was named All-American.”It’s pretty awesome that she won two years in a row,” said Galvez, who coaches the English team with assistant coach Tracie Lindsey.Womack and the English team were one of 15 teams of cheerleaders from around the region who spent days learning new stunts, practicing pyramids and new dances.Galvez said they’ll use what they’ve learned for competition season in the fall, where Lynn English usually makes it to the regional level of cheerleading competitions.Galvez urged Womack and several other cheerleaders on the team to try out for the All-American title, where they had to perform their best jumps and dances they learned while at the camp for a panel of UCA judges.Womack, who has been cheering since she was 7, was the English representative picked for the title, something she said will help her pursue her dream of cheering in college.”It looks good on your resume,” she said.If she can raise the $3,000 or so required for the trip, Womack will be able to march with other All-American cheerleaders at the New Year’s Eve parade in London.But her sights are set closer to home too, like on how she can help her cheerleading team’s prospects in competitions this fall.”We’re a good working team, and we work together well and we get things done,” she said.”We have a lot of talent on the team; we just have to push ourselves to do it and have the confidence in ourselves.”Womack said one of the team’s goals is to make it out of the regional competition and qualify for the state-level competition.”I’d feel proud of our team because we never make it past regionals, and that would be a good thing for our team to move on and make it farther in the competition,” she said.Galvez said the team has enough talent to do so.Also at the camp, they placed first among varsity teams larger than 20 cheerleaders in a one-minute routine of stunts, dances and pyramids they had learned only three days ago.And camp officials named senior and cheer captain Brandie Holland as one of the camp’s best young leaders, she said.”I think these girls have a lot of talent and I think they can go far if they put their minds to it,” Galvez said.Amber Parcher can be reached at [email protected].