On Saturday, November 5,  the varsity cheer team attended the UCA Regional Competition. This competition holds opportunities for teams to earn bids for the 2023 UCA High School Nationals in Orlando, FL. The event was held at Oak Park High School in Kansa City, MO.

After weeks of practice preparing for their events, the team started off the day strong with their game day routine, hitting every stunt in their performance.

“After watching the routines I had a real good feeling that we were gonna be finishing first,” Head Coach John Yockey said. “When you deal with cheerleading judges, sometimes the results aren’t necessarily what you think they should be”.

After every team performed their routines, awards were given based on overall scores. The cheer team placed first in the UCA medium team bracket with a lead of 4 points.

“We’ve been fighting a lot of injuries and we still have some that are nagging. We’re gonna work our way through those and do our best when it comes to state,” John Yockey said.

After numerous injuries within the cheer program, the girls managed to put everything into their routines.

“We all love it, and we all love each other so I think our motivation is each other. We do like to win and we want rings from state, and we want to place at nationals” senior Ella Kleinsorge said.

The girls immediately prepared for their second routine of the day after the awards. With pure adrenaline flowing through the team, the team was confident they would compete to their best abilities.

“We knew the goals that we had and we wanted to reach them. We have worked so hard the last couple of months and we got to show that in our routine” senior Avery Bell said.

With only 4 deductions to their overall score, the team succeeded in placing first for their traditional routine on top of their previous win.

“After the routine, I felt pretty confident because all of my stunts hit and I felt good after,” senior Ella Kleinsorge said. “After awards, it was a good feeling because it was like our work finally paid off”.
With two first-place trophies and two national bids to the 2023 UCA High School Nationals, the cheer team will be headed to Orlando, FL in February.

“We’re all super close and we try to stay really positive,” senior Avery Bell said. “We have our days, but because we’re so close we understand how the routine works and we work better together and make sure everything is where we want it to be.”