The Westwood Warriors attended the first pep rally of the year on Friday, Aug. 27. Students gathered attentively to watch performances presented by cheerleaders, dancers, musicians, and teachers and hear more information about fall sports.

As students walked into the big gym, they were greeted by cheerful sun dancers and a booming drum line. The pep rally began with an invigorating cheerleader performance, followed by an introduction to the fall sports. The football, volleyball, tennis, and swim teams announced their results for the previous season and invited the students to future games and meets.

“I thought it was a really fun experience and a great way to acknowledge our sports for the first time this year,” Kinaa Graham ’23 said. “It was a lot of fun [to announce the tennis team] and I haven’t spoken at a pep rally before so it was a good experience.”

After the fall team’s announcements, the sun dancers performed to a medley of pop and hip-hop songs. K-Pop club followed, dancing to K-Pop song Crazy by 4 Minute. In the intermission of the two performances, the cheerleaders performed a series of chants and threw empty pizza boxes and t-shirts to the crowd. Students could later go to the main office and exchange the pizza boxes with actual pizza slices.

“It was enjoyable,” Jerry Deblois ’23 said. “I really wanted pizza but I didn’t get pizza. Watching the [injured] kid run around and almost win was really cool. K-pop was really cool too. They had the best dance out of all of them.”

The pep rally ended with students singing the school song. Students turned on their phone camera flashlights and swayed the lights back and forth in time to the music.

“It was amazing seeing everybody so spirited and ready for the new year of high school,” Gabriel Paredes ’23 said. “I’m so excited after going to the pep rally.”