It was a chilly Friday morning, the morning of the Thunder Ridge Cheer competition. Holy Family had a late start with school beginning at 10am, but their cheerleaders did not. At our practice from 7am-9am, we ran routine after routine to ensure perfection. It was one of the toughest practices of the season, and the pressure was on. Everyone knew what had to be done to win, it was just about executing our skills on the mat. You could truly feel the spirit at our practice that morning. 

Throughout the team’s school day, we were all pretty anxious for class to be over. Competition was steadily approaching. For me, I couldn’t do much except go over the routine in my head over and over again. When I talked to my teammates at lunch, they shared similar feelings. We had been hitting our routine in practice all week, and it was time to show off what we had been working on. 

At around 2pm, the cheerleaders and the dancers were called out of class for a quick practice before heading out. We performed our stunts for dance, and they performed their turns for us. Everything was going smoothly. 

Finally, the cheer and poms team made their way to Denver Christian for the Thunder Ridge competition. We all shared a bus, and Mrs. Hulquest provided Chick-fil a, which was absolutely delicious. Many of the girls just listened to music or talked with their friends, so it was an extremely pleasant bus ride down there. 

When we arrived, our teams were shuffled into the men’s locker room. Not the most ideal or clean spot for getting ready, but it worked well enough. Uniforms were put on and hair was slicked for the next hour. 

Soon after the hour had passed, we were called down to warmups. We quickly began to crumble under the pressure of our upcoming competition. Stunts that hit in practice were falling to the ground, and tumbling that had been in place for months was falling as well. It seemed as if our near perfect routine was about to fail in front of the crowd. 

However, when we got on the mat, most things came together. 9/10 of our stunts hit, and everybody tumbled extremely well. The pyramid, the section of our routine that had been the most shaky, finally hit in front of a crowd. It was an amazing feeling after all our hard work that week.