The Green Level varsity cheerleading team completed their full competition routine for the first time last week as they were preparing for regionals on November 8. Regionals is especially important for them as it will serve as one of their only opportunities to get a bid for nationals. After spending the past few months building and refining their routine, the team is now focused on perfecting every detail before they take to the mat next month.
“We’ve been preparing for our first competition for a little while now,” sophomore captain Harper Willis says, “It started back around the middle of last month, when we were creating our routine and putting the pieces together. Once we put those pieces together, we focused on working on each one separately. For the past two weeks, we’ve been running the full routine and making sure everything fits.”
The cheer team will go to six competitions this year, including nationals. The first one, which the team calls “Fake States,” is the biggest one and has the largest say in how the rest of their season goes.
“I am feeling a little nervous because this competition is supposed to be where we get our bid for nationals, and if we don’t get it here, we may not be able to go,” Willis explains. “This competition is definitely one of our biggest ones. It does take a lot of preparation, so I’m nervous but excited at the same time.”
Rylan McLaughlin is one of the four freshmen who made the varsity squad this year. She is incredibly grateful for being given the opportunity to perform at the highest level straight out of middle school, and she’s looking forward to their upcoming competition.
“I’m excited, but I’m nervous too,” McLaughlin says. “We have a really good team and people that all want to be there and do well, but I feel like since we’re just starting to fully do our routine, we obviously wouldn’t do as good as we’d like if we went out there right now. But I think at the pace we’re currently at, we’ll do really good by the time the competition actually happens.”
So far, the team is doing really well in their rehearsals of the routine. Willis says that this year’s routine is more advanced than last year’s, especially when it comes to tumbling. Understandably, since they’ve only recently started putting all the sections together, there are still a few details that need polishing before the competition.
“I think when we do it all individually we do really well, but when we put it all together, it’s just kind of crazy,” McLaughlin agrees. “But I definitely think that it’s still really early, and we have plenty of time before the competition. Once it comes together and we practice it enough times it will be really good.”
Willis is especially proud of how hard the team has been working and the progress they’ve made so far this season.
“I’m really proud of how hard we’ve all worked, especially our separate stunt groups,” Willis says, “If something isn’t working, everyone always puts in one hundred percent effort to make sure it does end up working in the end.”
Both the varsity and JV teams will be attending regionals in November, although they’ll be competing in different divisions. Both teams will be spending the next few weeks perfecting their routines so they can represent Green Level with confidence on competition day.
