No one expected Westview to win. Not the coaches, not the cheerleaders themselves.
After all, it was their first CIF competition ever; they had no experience, barely enough people to form a team, and little time to practice.
But, on Dec. 4, at Montgomery High School, the Westview competition cheerleading team was crowned the San Diego Division III champion.
The competition at Montgomery was a one-day event with 35 teams separated into different divisions.
Westview was in Division III, along with four other teams. Their winning routine started with baskets, transitioned to standing and running tumbling sequences followed by jumps and elites, and ended with a cheer, running tumbling, a pyramid, and a dance.
The competition was Lane Wahlgren’s (11) first. Having been a gymnast initially, Wahlgren had never cheered before joining the Westview team during her freshman year.
As a first-timer, she experienced difficulties adjusting to the new sport.
“It was pretty difficult to remember all the chants,” Wahlgren said. “Learning how to stunt was really difficult for me because the transition from an individual sport [like gymnastics] to a team sport [like cheer] is a big one.”
The coaches handpicked Wahlgren, along with Taisia Latimer (11), Rachel Greenstein (11), and eight other cheerleaders for what would be the 12-member winning team.
Even though this was their first CIF competition, Latimer and Greenstein have both been cheerleading for more than a decade.
Like in the case of many other of her teammates, cheerleading has always been an important part of Latimer’s life.
“I started cheering when I was 4,” Latimer said. “At first, it was just something that I did because my brother played football and I was cheering for him. But then, I found a passion for [cheer], especially when it came to competitions. I love the excitement, performing and seeing the people in the audience.”
Likewise, ever since she first tried cheerleading at 6 years old, Greenstein fell in love with the sport, particularly the exhilaration of competitive cheerleading.
“What really attracts me to [cheer] is competing rather than sideline [cheerleading],” she said. “I just love the feeling of competing on the floor and the crowds.”
Greenstein and Latimer met in Westview Youth Cheer and have been friends ever since. Together, they bonded with teammates, practiced stunts, and became varsity cheerleading captains last year.
Both of them are also bases, the cheerleaders who hold the flyer in the air by their ankles during stunts. While ultimately deciding on a position takes a lot of trial and error, the two enjoy their role as bases.
“It’s definitely like, ‘oh, the flyer looks pretty,’ but I also feel like the credit should also be given to the base for doing the work to support them,” Latimer said.
Despite the initial difficulty she faced transitioning to a new sport, Wahlgren now enjoys her role as a backspot.
“You really have to build trust between yourself and the flyer because if the flyer falls, [the backspot] is the one who catches them so they don’t hit the ground,” Wahlgren said.
Greenstein also takes pride in her role as a base.
“As a base, I have a lot of control in the stunt,” Greenstein said. “The base is the one throwing up the girls and holding their feet. There’s a lot of action, so it’s fun.”
Due to the relatively small squad, many of the cheerleaders, including Greenstein, were put into roles they weren’t used to for the competition.
“It was kind of challenging to create solid groups because we had a lot of previous flyers become bases or vice versa,” she said. “[Being a flyer] was fun. I prefer to be a base, but if I have to be a flyer, I can do that.”
This was far from the only challenge the team faced.
Because the team had only decided to participate last minute, while their competitors had been practicing their routines for months, Westview only had one month to perfect their performance.
“We didn’t have hope that we would win because of other girls who had been practicing more than us,” Latimer said. “We would look at the other girls that won last year, and then here’s us barely practicing. We thought we absolutely had no chance.”
Complicated by the minimal practice time they had, the biggest challenge for the team was their one of their last stunts: the pyramid.
“[The pyramid] was the one part in our routine that was the most last-minute,” Wahlgren said. “We tried so many different stunts in our pyramid and they weren’t working. Everything had to be super precise. The flyers had to continuously be touching each other or else there would be a [point] deduction [during the competition]. There were so many little things we had to think about all at the same time while being able to do the pyramid and not fall.”
Walking into the Montgomery gym the morning of the competition, another problem was evident. While other cheerleaders showed up with perfect hair and makeup, the Westview team was scrambling just to get ready.
“We didn’t have our hair done, girls didn’t have their makeup, we were showing up late,” she said. “I had to braid three girls’ heads, we were trying to find lip gloss, we were just a mess.”
Westview was the last team to compete, and seeing the previous two teams’ immaculate performances only put more pressure on them.
“I was honestly super nervous,” Wahlgren said. “I’ve competed in [gymnastics] competitions before but this was very different because it wasn’t just me: I had a whole team with me.”
Her nerves continued into the performance, when Wahlgren said she started to feel a little queasy. But she knew that she couldn’t give up.
“I was right in the center for a cheer and I almost started throwing up,” she said. “I was kind of gagging, but my only thoughts were ‘you can not throw up, you have to keep going.’ I just kept telling myself to keep going regardless of what happened.”
Luckily, despite their worries, they performed well; even though their pyramid fell, their tumbling was solid, their movements were clean and sharp, and their cheers were enthusiastic and crowd-engaging.
“For a lot of the girls, including me, this was our first cheer competition, so we were pretty much going into it blind,” Wahlgren said. “I am just so proud of [the entire team] because we did everything we needed to work on and we [performed] the routine really well.”
When it came time to announce the results, Westview didn’t have much confidence. But to their surprise, when it came time to announce first place, they were named the winners.
Upon hearing the results, the Westview team screamed in excitement. Some, like Wahlgren, even started crying out of joy and shock.
“I just remember looking at my coaches’ faces and their jaws were dropped to the floor,” Wahlgren said. “We were all so surprised we actually won. It was an awesome feeling, but definitely unexpected.”
This win is just the start for the Westview cheer team.
“Obviously, winning is in the back of everyone’s mind but I think the goal for us next year is to feel more prepared,” Wahlgren said. “I want us to be happy with our routine and build a strong bond with each other.”
Even though Greenstein is excited about Westview’s win, that doesn’t stop her from setting goals to improve her skill set.
“I want to continue to improve my back handspring,” she said. “I’m able to do it, but I always have a little bit of mental block with it, so I definitely want to get rid of that.”
Both Greenstein and Latimer said their love for cheerleading means that they will continue to cheer next year and into college.
“If I’m sitting in the stands [during a football game], it’s definitely going to feel a little bit weird to me since it’s not something I normally do,” Greenstein said.
Latimer adds that her life would feel incomplete without the cheerleading practices and competitions.
“[Cheer] has been my whole life and I would not want to give up something that I am good at and I really love,” Latimer said. “If I couldn’t cheer, I would feel out of place.”