After eight months of hard work, tears, blood, injuries, dedication, and a whole lot of time, the Holy Family Cheerleaders will compete at CHSAA State this Friday, December 8th.
Losing four seniors last year and some underclassmen, we were ready to pursue a year of building up the team. Going into tryouts in April, we had a few new young girls tryout and it looked promising. A young team doesn’t always mean something bad – Holy Family Cheer has dominated the 4A All Girl Traditional Cheer division thus far.
These rookies have adapted to the mentally tough mindset, along with capability to face adversity (which we had much of this season). Throughout the season, the competition team has never competed the same routine at each competition, making changes each week and upping the difficulty and executing it to our fullest potential. At choreography in July, we had a competition team with 15 girls and three stunt groups. Our choreographer made our routine flashy but still classy and clean. We were excited to perform this beautiful routine and make a stronger comeback after our State Runner-Up season.
It is not a cheer season without a bit of a rocky road. In September, one of our rookie flyers fell and hurt her elbow. She had to get surgery and was set to be out until the end of December, State is the second weekend of December. We were defeated. What this meant was that we had to change the routine we just started practicing. Changing formations and stunt groups is not something easy. It took us a few weeks to get into the feel of things with our new groups. We didn’t have much time left until competition season was in full swing.
Trying all of these new elite skills we did not have in our routine last year was a risk. Many injuries happened while we were practicing these flips, single legged stunts and dismounts, leading us to start back at the basics in order to avoid injuries that we could not afford. Our first competition we competed the most basic of the basic skills, but still executed them perfectly which resulted in a high score due to cleanliness. Each competition our coaches Alissa, Monique and April expected us to add new skills and not settle for anything less. We knew we were capable and strong enough to put these elite skills into our routine.
Now we are 48 hours away from the last hoorah for myself and the six other seniors on the competition team. Our routine is packed with difficulty that we have worked day in and day out cleaning. The countless early mornings, long practices, tears, changes will all be worth it on Friday at the Coliseum.
Come support those who support you on Friday at 11:45 A.M at The Denver Coliseum!
