The Lemont area’s competitive cheerleading championship scoreboard is worth yelling about.
Lemont High School has won a state-best eight first-place trophies in Illinois High School Association competition and brought home a state-record 16 top-3 trophies in all.
Starting with the 2018 season, Old Quarry Middle School in Lemont won seven Illinois Elementary School Association state titles.
Now add to that treasure trove of awards. Some of the athletes from those schools have participated for the USA Cheer National Youth All Girls Team and Youth Coed teams in the International Cheer Union’s World Championships in recent years. And they joined forces with athletes from all over the country to win at least one gold medal a year since 2019.
The 2026 Coed team, which features six athletes from Lemont schools and one from Richards High School, kept the streak alive by winning a world championship April 24 in Orlando.
The USA beat out Mexico, Germany, Norway, Finland, the Philippines, Sweden, Chile, Australia and China in the final round to win the gold.
Lemont freshman Zianna Schneider has been on three gold medal-winning teams and is proud of those accomplishments because three years ago she came to the team late as a fill-in.
“I love performing and showing off all the hard work that we’ve done,” Schneider said. “I also love meeting new friends and there are still some friends I’m in contact with from my season three years ago. It’s fun meeting people internationally.”
Area athletes joining Schneider on this year’s team were high school teammates Aleksa Tomala and Emma Betley, Old Quarry’s Brinn Zdenek, Madison Sahs and Vanessa Bielski, and Richards’ Caden Mundo.
Lemont head coach Bree Grady-Simpson, Old Quarry head coach and Lemont junior varsity coach Claudia DeSantis and Lockport assistant coach Alex Mercado are all assistants for the USA team.
One of the reasons Lemont has been able to place so many athletes on the USA team is location. The USA team is based at the Ice Allstar facility based in East Dundee. Some of their teammates come into practices from New Jersey, Kansas, Indiana Alabama and Texas.
“They are very fortunate to have this opportunity in their backyard,” Grady-Simpson said. “We’ve had a lot of Lemont kids come through and have these incredible opportunities.”
Even with the advantageous location, the cheerleaders spend extra time in the sport aside from their grade school and high school commitments.
“It says a lot about who they are as people and as athletes,” Grady-Simpson said. “Obviously it’s an incredible opportunity to represent the USA in a sport that they love, but committing to the many hours to an already long high school and junior high school season just shows how much they are dedicated to their own growth and being a part of something bigger than themselves.”
Schneider said she doesn’t mind the extra workload.
However, tryouts can make for a long day. But in this case, the longer, the better.
“The tryouts are all day, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.,” Schneider said. “Throughout the day, they make cuts for people to start heading home so it’s definitely stressful.”
As for those who don’t think competitive cheerleading is a sport, Schneider said many people look at sideline cheerleaders and base their decisions on that. Competitive cheerleading is different altogether, especially at the state, national and international levels, she said.
“There is so much training and so much endurance and you have to get in the right headspace,” Schneider said. “You have to work with your team, especially if you are on the stunt team. The four of you have to be on the same page to make the stunt work.”
Grady-Simpson tries to promote the sport of competitive cheerleading as much as she can.
But the most important thing to her about competing internationally has more to do with the social aspect of the sport rather than who wins medals.
“We can talk about cheerleading all we want but to see it done by other countries and to see it done in other languages is great and they all get to bond over their love of the sport,” she said.
Grady-Simpson said the athletes trade gifts with each other and try to learn each other’s culture.
“They can be more than just athletes on a mat,” she said. “They don’t speak the same language but they are all there for the same reason — to grow our sport. It’s a really cool experience.
“There’s nothing like it.”
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
