enlarge John Ewing/Staff Photographer

That would be defense. Get it? That’s what Ellen Wormwood urged her Bonny Eagle football players to play. And they did in the victory against Gorham.

enlarge John Ewing/Staff Photographer

Jessica Del Vecchio, who maintains straight A’s, is happy to be part of the team.

enlarge John Ewing/Staff Photographer

The bonding begins before every football game, when the Bonny Eagle cheerleaders gather for dinner and sign-making. On this night, it was at Ashley DeStefano’s home.

enlarge John Ewing/Staff Photographer

With milk crates in hand for storage and to stand on, the cheerleaders wait to board the bus that will take them to a football game in Gorham.

enlarge John Ewing/Staff Photographer

Andrea Mondor reacts to a touchdown. Seconds later that meant push-ups. At least six of them.

enlarge John Ewing/Staff Photographer

They cheer at football games, at soccer games, at basketball games, both boys’ and girls’. And when you’re a cheerleader at Bonny Eagle High, you’re also part of a tradition of cheering excellence. Part of a team that usually does well in competitions with other high school teams.

NEXT FRIDAY
A young rivalry heats up

"That we're ditzy, that we get bad grades," said Skibicki, a senior cheerleader at Bonny Eagle High. "I've heard everything. Like, we sleep around, or we party, or we have diseases. It's so not true."

"Blonde, ditzy, bimbo-y," fellow senior Del Vecchio said. "Really tall and skinny, flexible."

As a 4-foot-10 brunette who maintains straight A's and, truth be told, isn't all that flexible, Del Vecchio simply shrugs off the misconceptions.

"When I met the girls and joined the team," she said, "they were actually nothing like what people think they are."

Skibicki, a tall redhead who took a two-year break from cheering because of scoliosis and lower back pain, plans to attend medical school.

"I want to be a doctor," she said. "It's not like I'm going to be a professional cheerleader when I grow up, even though that would be fun."

Del Vecchio and Skibicki are two of the 16 varsity cheerleaders at Bonny Eagle who entertain and help rally spectators in support of the school's football team. They also cheer at soccer games and in winter compete against other cheering squads, as well as cheer at both boys' and girls' basketball games.

Fall is their fun season, a time to lift school spirit, try out new stunts and inject a huge dose of positive energy into the atmosphere surrounding high school football. Two years ago, both football and cheerleading squads won Class A state championships.

"There's definitely a mutual respect factor," said Bonny Eagle football coach Kevin Cooper. "They're both top programs in the state."

Much like a football team needs good chemistry to be successful, Bonny Eagle's cheerleaders must develop a sense of trust and cohesion to perform dances and jumps in synchronization, in order to build pyramids and to toss and catch each other, sometimes from dizzying heights.

With five seniors, five juniors, five sophomores and one freshman on the squad, such bonding takes time and effort. At Bonny Eagle, it begins with team dinners preceding each football game.

"You gain an extra family," Del Vecchio said. "It's like having 15 extra sisters."

Before last weekend's game of unbeatens between Bonny Eagle and Gorham, the girls assembled at the close of school Friday in Selena Brown's third-floor math room.

Brown teaches Algebra II and pre-calculus at Bonny Eagle, and for the past nine years has coached cheerleading, a job she assumed as a senior at St. Joseph's College.

"When I was in high school (at Bonny Eagle), we won states my sophomore, junior and senior year," she said of the Scots' Class A cheerleading run of 1994-96. "Being a cheerleader, you have so much pride in your school anyway, then being on a good team and winning state championships, it stays in you. I can't imagine coaching anywhere else because I have so much pride in my school."

From Brown's classroom the girls car-pooled to the house of junior Ashley DeStefano, where they made signs, shared a pasta-and-salad dinner prepared by DeStefano's older sister, and began primping and preparing for the big game.

Brown doesn't hold elections for captains; she simply bestows the title upon each senior -- Del Vecchio, Skibicki, Ellen Wormwood, Amanda Conners and Angie Cartwright.

"It eliminates any jealousy or attitudes," said Brown, a former captain herself. "If you pick just one or two of the seniors, the others might feel they deserve it. That's not fun."

At practice the previous day Brown had used her new school- issued laptop computer to take video of each cheerleader performing a jump, be it a toe touch, a hurdle or a pretzel. After freezing the video at the jump's highest point, Brown made a print-out for each girl.

"I can tell them 10 times they need to point their toes," she said, "but when they see it in a picture, it makes...