Both the Baker University cheer and dance squads hosted tryouts for the 2009-2010 season Saturday.

The tryouts were held much earlier than previous years in hopes to avoid conflicts with high school activities and provide more time for further recruitment.

“We didn’t really want to interfere with high school prom season, which is coming up pretty soon and then we get into graduation,” coach Lynsey Payne said. “So we really felt like this was the best time for it, just so that it didn’t conflict with any other high school activities that were going on.”

Payne said the dance team had a great turnout. The team recruited 11 new athletes at the tryouts, taking its total up to 17 dancers for next year.

“We have a lot of new people that are going to come and help us out in a lot of different ways,” Payne said.

Payne said two of the women on the team will fill a distinct position and will be contributing strictly to one style of dance.

“I’ll call them hip-hop specialists,” Payne said. “They are very strong hip-hop dancers, so they are going to join the team strictly for hip-hop.”

On the other side, the cheer team did not see as much success with recruiting at the tryouts.

Struggling all season to keep its numbers up, the cheer team only added three athletes to the squad.

With three incoming freshmen joining the team, the cheer squad now sits at a total of 10 athletes.

Head coach Taylor Schreiner said she is enthused about the new freshmen athletes but hopes to continue to recruit more cheerleaders through the end of this school year.

“We got some great incoming freshmen, but numbers aren’t exactly where I want them to be and where the (women) want them to be, so we are definitely going to keep recruiting,”

Schreiner said. "I don't know if we will do another big tryout, but we will probably have some smaller tryouts."<br/>Schreiner said her goal for next year's cheer squad is to have 16 total athletes.Schreiner said her goal for next year's cheer squad is to have 16 total athletes.
Schreiner said her goal for next year’s cheer squad is to have 16 total athletes.

Junior Chimare Eaglin said tryouts went really well for both teams although they didn’t get the turnout they were expecting.

“Cheer and dance both had a lot of people, and it went really smoothly and it was really organized,” Eaglin said.