High school students cheered and celebrated the Lady Hawks basketball team victory with a pep rally in the SHS gym and is heading to state in Anchorage later this week.

The Lady Hawks play against Barrow tonight in the Alaska Airlines Center at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

“WHO’S HOUSE!?” yelled GILA principal John Riddle. “OUR HOUSE!” the crowd said repeatedly.

Each of the Lady Hawks and the boys’ basketball teams introduced themselves. Mr. Riddle congratulated Jacob Moos with three sliver and one bronze metal and Carolyn Sam with two gold and one silver medal during their meet at the Arctic Winter Game in Greenland, then praised Kaleb Korta for the Alaska cross-country athlete of the year.

In the beginning of the pep rally, the Lady Hawks went into the girl’s locker room as the community and GILA students formed a line waiting for the run out with the sound of music in the background.

During the pep rally crowd was entertained by students participating in team challenges, each game lasted about 15 minutes.

The pep rally concluded with some of the Lady Hawks shaving the head of Paul Apfelbeck, the media and information technology. He had promised the basketball teams that he would shave his head during a pep rally if the teams made it to state. After his head was shaved, two basketball players painted a gold “G” and the word “Hawks” in blue on his head. Other students followed and signed their names on his head with markers.