Hamilton residents may not realize it, but the township played a major role in winning a high school championship this fall.
When the Notre Dame High School varsity cheerleading team claimed the Colonial Valley Conference Grand Championship on Nov. 21 at West Windsor-Plainsboro North, 41 percent of the team consisted of Hamilton residents. Helping comprise the 22-girl roster was senior tri-captain Marissa Chiarello, along with seniors Michaela Fitzpatrick, juniors Lexi Amoroso, Colleen Kalinowski, Marinela Constantino and Meghan Conover, sophomores Rheanna Bromwell and Lauren Wright and freshman Dani Bonavico.
“Each one of the Hamilton girls are hard workers,” coach Heather Kapuscinski said. “They are what make our team what it is.”
“It is very cool that there are so many Hamilton girls on the team,” Chiarello said. “I have known most of them my whole life because a handful of us went to Saint Gregory the Great Academy together. For the other girls that lived in Hamilton, it was such a small world. We are all very close as a team, and it was very cool that a handful of us were from the same hometown.”
Kapuscinski, in her fifth season with the Irish program and first as head coach, called her captains “backbones” of the team who brought different sets of skills to the squad, along with leadership. Allentown’s Cara DiGiuseppe and Morgan Kalman of Yardley, Pennsylvania, were the other two.
The coach pointed to Chiarello as the team’s Energizer Bunny.
“Marissa is a crucial part of our squad,” Kapuscinski said. “She is always the positive one who brings the team up when they get defeated. Her energy and enthusiasm is contagious. She gives her all in everything she does. Marissa is a strong base and always willing to be involved. Honestly, I can go on and on about her, she is a great kid.”
A dancer since age 3, Chiarello has an impressive work ethic, as she is still rehearsing in the studio nearly every night for four hours.
Entering Notre Dame from St. Greg’s, she was looking for a new venture and decided to give cheerleading a try. Her sister went from dance to cheer and the thought process was, “If she could do it, I could too.’ Dance is a big part of cheer, so I figured why not give it a shot?”
Chiarello was placed on the freshman team in ninth grade and immediately voted team captain. Rather than get carried away with her power, she used the season as a learning tool, which helped her become one of just two sophomores on varsity the following year. She has been there ever since, but only cheers in the fall as her winters are filled with dancing and the school play.
Despite her late start into cheerleading, Chiarello received a huge honor last summer when she was voted a team captain. It was a responsibility she took seriously. As the main dancer among the captains, she choreographed most of the dances and mixed most of the music for the routines at football and soccer games and pep rallies. All three captains put together the routines.
“Another huge captain responsibility was being there for the teammates,” Chiarello said. “Especially during competition season, they needed to be pushed and needed to hear that ‘We can do this!’ and ‘This is our year!’ which came out of my mouth a lot.”
Interestingly, Chiarello noted that despite the constant joy on a cheerleader’s face, there is tension just beneath the surface.
“It is hard to feel 100 percent confident as a cheerleader,” she said. “There is always something that you are worried about in a routine, whether it is a tumbling pass not hitting, or a stunt coming down. Something can, and for the most part will, always go wrong. My job was to let those nerves and negative feelings not get into their heads because if their fear got the best of them, it would show in the routine.”
Thus, the captains fed off each other and would talk to the team to provide critiques, confidence and the stamina needed for individual and team improvement. The leadership paid off handsomely at the CVC Championships. Notre Dame won the Large Division and Best Choreography of the Night, which led to being named Grand Champions. It was the Irish’s sixth Grand Championship overall, and first since 2009.
The Large Division meant the 2 minute, 30 second routine involved a cheer, as opposed to some which are all music. According to Kapuscinski, the routine began with a 50-second music segment, which had an opening with standing tumbling, elite stunts and running tumbling. From there it went into the cheer, incorporating signs and pom poms to get the crowd involved. The spectacle concluded with 40 more seconds of music that featured jumps, a pyramid and dance.
Chiarello, who endured two tough bus rides home from the CVCs in the two previous seasons, said she could sense during the competition that the Irish were nailing their routine, which was composed by an outside choreographer.
“When we won our division, we were super excited because we knew we were one step closer to grand champs,” she said. “We got the highest score out of not only our category, but all of the teams competing and that is such a big honor in the Mercer County cheer world. Winning Best Choreography in addition to first place in our division, and being Grand Champs was the icing on top of the cake.”
Chiarello hopes her next competition will be with the St. Joseph’s University dance team. She is waiting to hear back from the school—one of several she has applied to—which is her first choice.
“I love both cheer and dance so much, but I decided that I would like to be on a dance team in college because I have been doing that the longest and that is my passion,” said Chiarello, who hopes to be a cheer coach like her sister, or dance teacher. “Cheer gets very competitive in college, and I don’t have the tumbling skills that most schools require, so that made my decision a little easier. I want to be an education major at St. Joe’s and being on their dance team would be awesome because they are really good.”
No less than a former Hawk dancer herself—Steinert graduate Kelly Sutterlin—feels Chiarello has the right stuff. Sutterlin is head coach at Hunterdon Central, and one of her former dancers is a freshman on the Hawks team.
When Chiarello was brought up, Sutterlin said, “I recognize that name. She’s a Stewart Johnson dancer and so was I. She will definitely make it. She has great training.”
Chiarello also had a mentor with big-time college experience in Kapuscinski, a JFK-Iselin graduate who cheered for the University of Louisville’s coed team. The Cardinals won three NCA national titles in the large-co-ed division during her tenure. Kapuscinski also cheered for the Gym Tyme All Stars and won five consecutive world titles from 2007-2011, including one with the first Team USA squad.
“Coach Heather was an amazing coach to cheer for this season,” Chiarello said. “This was the first year that she was the varsity coach, so it was a learning experience for her and all of us, but she made the season a great one for us. All of the cheerleaders owe our victory to her and our past cheer coach, coach (Diane) Wargo, who retired last year and taught all of us everything that we needed to know about the Notre Dame cheer program.”
All anyone needs to know about the Irish now, is that they are the best in the CVC, and Hamilton Township is a big reason why.
The Notre Dame cheer team celebrates its conference championship. Pictured are coach Heather Kapuscinski, coach Lauren Bressi, Michaela Fitzpatrick, captain Cara DiGiuseppe, captain Marissa Chiarello, captain Morgan Kalman, Emily Sowa, coach Abby Murray, Rheanna Bromwell, Julia Dell’Angelo, Dani Bonavico, Stephanie Maria, Marinela Constantino, Meghan Conover, Aniya Robertson, Jharia Morris, Danielle Avanzato, Andie Carlin, Giana Adragna, Julia Rauscher, Jess Peroni, Kyndal Tillett, Lexi Amoroso, Colleen Kalinowski and Lauren Wright.,
