This past weekend (Friday the fifteenth and Saturday the sixteenth), our competition cheerleaders ended their season with a bang at state. They left for Columbus after a dinner with the football team on Thursday night and traveled the three-hour bus ride where they would spend their weekend. 

Since they won regions, they got to have all of Friday off, not needing to worry about sectionals and placing in the top nine to move on. Mostly, they stayed in the crowd, watching and supporting the other teams. 

After getting locked out of their bus, stuck behind a stopped train for half an hour, and stopping for Chick-fil-a, they participated in their last practice of the season. Thankfully, everything went to plan and their practice parried a few of the doubts that may have been gathering in their heads. 

That night they bonded over dinner at The Loft, but disregarded the itinerary when they decided to go watch and support the Gordon Lee cheerleaders. They sprinted inside the building, thinking they were about to miss their performance, only to find out they were twenty minutes early. 

As for the next day, a stress-filed morning kept everyone quiet as they waited for their time to warm-up. Being in the giant stadium with everyone looking down on you didn’t seem to be helping anyone’s stress. 

Our cheerleaders were set to perform as the second team after intermission, and perform they did. After years of dropping a stunt or not performing as well as they could at State, our girls did everything to completion with almost no errors. Truly a jaw-dropping performance and definitely the best of the season. 

Unfortunately, our girls placed eighth. Their coach, Mrs. Burkett, just said that they must not have liked the girls because the scores did not reflect the performance they put on. Despite not getting called down to the floor, everyone is ready to get back to tumbling classes and ready for the next year to start so they can prove they needed to place.

Although there were many tears shed, everyone can agree that it was still a fun weekend and it will just give them another reason to try harder next year.