Athlete of the Month: Arianna Moore

At AFHS, the basketball, volleyball, and football teams all have people cheering them on during their games. They have enthusiastic cheerleaders on the sidelines, pumping them up and giving them the confidence to win the game. With the end of the cheerleading season, the stunt team now gets their chance to shine. When asked about an exemplary member on her team, varsity coach, Samantha Moreno, chose Arianna Moore (10), saying, “she is very hardworking and determined and helps unite the team as a whole.”

Moore has been cheering for four years, and this year marks her first on the stunt team. For those who don’t follow stunting, Moore describes it as, “a more competitive part of cheer, where it’s set up into four quarters, where [the team] compete[s] head-to-head against another team.” The difference from cheer, she explains, comes from stunt being, “more about timing and placement and how you hit the motions correctly.” Moore feels that stunting differs from other sports in the respect that, “it’s way more competitive than…sports…but it’s also very fun and creates more of a family.”

Arianna Moore (10) loves being on the stunt team. Photo by Abi Burt

Moore shared her favorite aspect of the stunt team, saying, “I like the family aspect, but I also really like having a place to go and just let everything out. It’s a very comfortable environment.” Conversely, she stated that the hardest part about stunting comes from the need for motivation. She expounded that people on the stunt team require tremendous amounts of determination, and the ability to perform every skill from tumbling to jumps, all while having minimal break time in between. But Moore continues to persevere, as her love for the sport triumphs over the hardships that come with stunting.

Although the future remains uncertain, Moore has her eye on her dream school, Penn State, where she wants to be a cheerleader. Cheering brings her such excitement, and over the years it has become her passion. She concludes by asserting that, “sports are just about getting your head in the game and enjoying it. That's how stunt is for us.”