ROCHESTER — The Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical High School cheerleading team will see new leadership as Kelly Taveira will take the reins from her daughter Riley Taveira as head cheerleading coach this season.

“It's kind of cool because it's come full circle,” said Kelly.

According to Kelly, although Riley left the head coach position last year, the two plan to work together to create the team’s choreography.

“Riley was really good at the technical aspects of cheerleading,” said Kelly. “She's going to be helping me with practices and helping me build their halftime routine.”

As a high-ranking gymnast, Kelly “never thought” she would become a cheerleader.

“Once I stopped doing gymnastics, that love of the sport stayed with me,” she said. “Competitive cheerleading does incorporate a lot of tumbling, so I was able to actually use a lot of my [gymnastic] skills in competitive cheerleading.”

In addition to nailing down a halftime routine, Kelly hopes to improve audience participation this football season.

“I’d like to incorporate more signs and get the crowd involved more because obviously sports is a huge part of Old Colony,” said Kelly.

Kelly said that the newly installed lights at the Old Colony field have helped with game attendance.

“Now we can have our games on Friday nights like everybody else does,” she said.

To help create team camaraderie, each practice will have a different theme this season.

“Some examples of the themes that we're going to do are like color wars, an army theme and a cowgirl theme,” said Kelly. “We take a group picture and there's a prize for the best outfit.”