Newtown Cheerleading Siblings, Kelly and Alyssa Stendahl, Are Standouts

By Andy Hutchison

Kelly and Alyssa Stendahl have more in common than being sisters — they are both standout cheerleaders.

Kelly is a sophomore at Newtown High School, and the only Nighthawk cheerleader to receive All-State honors. Alyssa, a 2007 NHS graduate, is a freshman on Sacred Heart University’s Division I squad just down the road in Fairfield.

Cheering runs in the family. Their mom, Kym Stendahl, cheered in high school and college. “I tried to expose them to all different things so they would be different than me,” she said light-heartedly. But cheering was their genes and being on the sidelines of games, rooting for the players on the fields and courts, waiving pom-poms and showing off their athleticism, was something Kelly and Alyssa took a liking to from an early age. After starting out as Pop Warner football cheerleaders, Kelly and Alyssa started participating in competitions and have challenged themselves, learning skills that impress the judges at those scored events.

“My favorite part is competing, but I like cheering. It’s fun to cheer for a team that’s good,” Alyssa said.

The Sacred Heart cheerleaders are on hand for the men’s and women’s home games, and travel for some of the big games. This winter, the men’s team reached its conference championship, giving Alyssa and her teammates plenty to cheer about right through the middle of this month.

Although Alyssa is a little older, she says it was Kelly who started cheering first (at the age of 9) and who inspired her to get involved with cheerleading. Now, Kelly might be following in Alyssa’s footsteps.

“I want to go to Sacred Heart and cheer with her,” Kelly said while watching her sister at a recent Sacred Heart basketball game.

Just as is the case with basketball or football, for example, cheerleaders have more rigorous, intense workouts when they reach the collegiate ranks. Although Kelly still has another couple years of high school ahead of her, she is already leaps and bounds ahead of some of the competition. Kelly earned first place in the jumping category at the Wildcat Tournament in New Haven this past weekend. She was also a member of a five-girl stunt team, including fellow NHS cheerleaders Genna Rossi, Maura McDade, Meghan Dolyak and Hanna Peteprin, to win first place at the tourney.

“She has great leadership skills along with strong cheering skills. Her tumbling is amazing and her technique in her stunting is outstanding. She is highly respected amongst all her teammates and she is a great motivator,” NHS cheerleading coach Stacey D’Amico said. “She does nothing but impress me at each practice. She is a hard worker and very dedicated to cheerleading.”

“I’m really proud of her,” Alyssa added.

Alyssa impresses her coach and teammates, too. SHU cheerleading coach Fernando Thomas says Alyssa is versatile and brings a lot of skill and cheerleading knowledge to the team. “She’s always doing her best,” he added.

During games, the cheerleaders run out onto the court to perform stunts during timeouts and between quarters or at halftime. The SHU cheerleaders also toss hot dogs into the stands.

“We always have to keep the crowd involved,” Alyssa said.

There are two fairly different aspects to cheering — whether it is in high school or college. In addition to a little bit of stunting and lot of cheering at games, cheerleaders do a lot of stunting at competitions that is quite demanding.

Thomas says cheerleading combines a little bit of everything from a variety of other sports given the stamina needed to carry out a two-and-a-half-minute-long routine. There is jumping, sprinting, using sheer strength to lift, toss, and catch a fellow cheerleader, and the grace and style you might find in gymnastics. Although cheerleaders are not out on the field sustaining hard hits, or on the courts facing flying elbows, they do endure their share of injuries.

“I think a lot of people do not realize how physical it can be,” Thomas said.

The cheerleading season pretty much never ends. The squads start practice in preparation for the football season in late summer, keep at it through the winter basketball campaign, and participate in competitions of their own in the spring.

Kelly and Alyssa got to cheer together for one year of high school, when Kelly was a freshman and Alyssa a senior. In couple of years, the siblings hope, they will be able to do that all over again — at the college level.

“That would be awesome,” Alyssa said.