As the girls line up to start their routine, the crowd is different. They aren’t on the sideline of Yates Stadium cheering the football to victory or lined up in the gym to start a pep rally. This time they are the ones in competition.
On Saturday, a little after 10:30 a.m., the cheerleaders will take the mat at the UIL State Championships. The team comprised of freshman-seniors have been working on this perfecting this performance for months.
The cheerleaders showed off their Game Day competition routine last night in the main gym.
“People should watch us perform because we deserve the support that we give to other sports,” freshman Addison Paske said. “We are doing good.”
While tryouts are coming soon, the cheer program has many goals and focuses for the end of this season.
“We have been preparing for the UIL competition pretty much the entire school year,” senior Londyn Cox said. “The opportunity to compete against other 6A schools has been a big focus for us this season. We attended cheer camp over the summer to help show the importance of the little things within routines.”
Cheering on the sidelines is a different ball game compared to competing at a cheer competition.
“The UIL team is different from what we do on the sidelines because it is lots of work to put together a routine and we have practice every day,” junior Payton Herdrich said. “For Friday night lights, we must know our cheers and band dances. At the competition, we get to show judges what we are capable of, which can help people overcome their fear of performing in front of a crowd.”
The UIL team cheerleaders spent countless hours sacrificing their time to be able to put on a show.
“Practices take up a lot of our time so that we can put out the best performance,” junior Ali Puls said.
Cheer hopes to showcase their best routine at their competition.
“One of our main goals for the upcoming competition is to give our all on the mat,” freshman Lilly Clark said. “We have to show that the work is worth it.”
Finals are a huge deal, and only about 20 teams in each division can make it to the finals.
“The cheerleaders who will be competing at UIL put in a lot of hard work, effort, and time to possibly make it to finals,” junior Desaray Wilkerson said.
