Competition cheer placed third in the D-II large division CIF sectional competition, Dec. 13. The team began their routine with a short spirit cheer before getting set and transitioning to their dance and tumbling sequence, performing to a mixed version of ‘Sports Car’ by Tate McRae, ‘Party 4 u’ by Charli XCX, and other assorted songs.
To master this complicated routine, comp cheer has been working since the season started in October, according to Quinn Padgett (11). She said that the high-stakes nature of competition cheerleading differs greatly from their regular sideline team.
“We’ve been having quite frequent practices for the past few months,” Padgett said. “We’ve been adding on extra practices, and they’re longer. They’re a lot more intense than during sideline season. For sideline we focus a lot on the basics of being sharp and having a lot of spirit. It’s a lot of different halftime routines and stuff. We focus on a little dance and pyramid we could realistically put together in a week or two. But for comp season, it’s a routine that requires a lot more skill, time and effort. We’ve been going, going, going non-stop, and we focus more on harder skills and challenging ourselves to get the best score possible.”
Next, they performed their elites, a section where all five stunt groups do the same stunt routine while incorporating their inversion skill, a mandatory inclusion in this particular competition. For this routine, they performed a front walkover to prep level, finishing off the move with a full up as the bases lifted the flyers up into the air.
Lastly, they finished the routine in a pyramid with a switch up to extended lib, a motion where the flyer is supported on only one leg.
Padgett said that comp cheer incorporated new skills that made the routine dynamic and interesting, however, they were new to the team.
“We had a lot of new, challenging skills that we hadn’t done together as a team, and we have a section called the elites—putting a lot of skills together very fast,” Padgett said. “Transitioning between those skills at such a fast pace is very difficult, and it makes it a lot harder to hit and not make any mistakes when you’re doing the routine. So it was definitely a learning curve for a lot of us. We had never done some of the skills, so we had to really push ourselves to try to learn how to do them.”
Charlotte Long (12) said their custom choreography was constructed for them by a professional choreographer who is renowned for her composition of comp cheer routines. In addition to this, they’ve been training especially hard.
“The past few weeks, we’ve had extra long practices three days a week because we had to nail everything,” Long said. “We had to just work more on harder stunts. And it’s also different because we had some JV girls join, so it was mixed and our stunt groups are different.”
The night before CIF sectionals, the girls competed in the Jamz Cheer & Dance competition. Padgett said that this, combined with their 8 a.m. call time the following morning, exhausted them.
“Back-to-back [competitions] were very challenging,” Padgett said. “I was very tired and drained. We had to compete at 8:30 the night before on Friday in Anaheim, and then attend our awards–which is where we get our score sheet and we know if we placed–and end at 10:30. We didn’t end up getting home until late and then had to compete really early for this competition. So it was difficult making that transition, especially because we have to do our hair, makeup, and warm up before competing. Then, obviously there’s the physical and mental exhilaration of comp day.”
Despite this, Long said the team was still able to put their best foot forward and keep enough energy to push through their routine.
“We tried our best and our energy was really good,” Long said. “We had a couple stunts that just didn’t hit, but I think we did well as a team with moving on from that for the rest of our routine. Our elites—our hard stunts—were all at the beginning, so if something goes wrong it’s really easy to mess up the rest of the routine, but I’m proud that we let it go, moved on and everything else hit. Some things are just out of our control, and we’ll work on them for the future.”
In their division, D-II large, Westview was up against Helix and Cathedral, two teams with talented cheer programs. Padgett said that their competition was well-matched and their skills were fun to watch.
“They have very talented cheerleaders, and we definitely had really good competition,” Padgett said. “Cathedral, especially, they’ve competed in higher divisions before, and I was a bit nervous going up against them. Also, Helix is known for being very good, and it was really cool because we were challenging ourselves to build a routine that was more difficult than one we’ve done before. We held our own, and we put out the best version of ourselves on the mat when we competed. Even though we didn’t end up beating the other schools in our division, we still were in the running. It was still so fun to watch, and it was really cool to see other people doing the sport that I love and succeeding and having fun.”
Due to the frequency of practices during competition season, the Wolverines grow especially close, according to Long, who has been doing comp since her freshman year.
“We have a lot of team spirit; the comp team is a smaller team than our sideline team, and we’re together a lot more,” Long said. “It’s a closer team than the little cliques we have on our sideline team, so I feel like there’s a lot of rallying for each other to hit the stunts. A lot of congratulations and everybody wants the best for each other because we all want our routine to hit.”
Padgett said that her experience competing for the past two years has helped refine her cheerleading skills and make her a stronger athlete. Particularly, she also enjoys the competitions themselves and the thrill they bring.
“I like how intense [comp] is, and how it pushes me to be a better cheerleader,” Padgett said. “I also like the stunting aspect because stunting is my favorite part of cheer, and comp cheer is a lot of stunting. I love the competitions themselves, because it’s always a really fun environment to be in, and you get this kick of adrenaline right before you go on stage. You only have two minutes and 30 seconds to completely do your routine that you’ve been practicing for months, and it’s always really thrilling. And then the relief that you get after it’s done, and the bond that you have with your team is really nice.”
According to Padgett, a big part of comp cheer is the support system it fosters.
“[The support] was amazing, I had good friends there and our coaches were also there and are also always very supportive and always lift us up,” Padgett said. “So having them there was really awesome, having my friends there with a cardboard cut-out of my face, and also just my teammates as we support each other through the process is also an awesome experience. I felt very lifted up and supported.”
Despite losing a few points for small errors, Long said she is proud of the team’s performance and hopes to see them continue to succeed at nationals in Las Vegas in February.
“We got a one-point deduction on the stunts falling, and we got a few points off on execution, but our main thing was our difficulty just wasn’t as high as the other team, so it placed us below them,” Long said. “[But] for nationals, we’re going to try some harder stunts because we kind of had to water down the stunts a little. For nationals our difficulty will be higher and we’ll definitely place higher. I’m excited to see what we can put together.”
