Cheer Takes 2022 Nationals

“Everyone wins nationals”, however, the 2021-2022 San Dimas Cheer team can argue that sentence. February 26th was one of the most joyful, and disappointing days for the member of the San Dimas Spiritline. Nationals for cheer consists of two parts, prelims which is a short term for “semi-finals” which totals thirty percent of a teams final score, and finals which is the remaining seventy percent.

“It’s all about the hit, and the energy”, is what Coach Keyauna Thomas told her team. On February 26th, the team was filled with part excitement, and part nervous emotion. The SDHS spiritline went out on the nationals mat with only three out of fifteen girls having ever competed in a national competition. Unfortunately, on of the stunts was dropped during the competition, leaving the team a little disappointed. Cheer is a harmony and partnership  sport, one wrong movement from one person and the whole stunt has the chance of falling.

Whether is was nerves, tiredness, fretfulness, or truly and accident, the stunt dropped, and there was nothing that could be done in the moment besides carry on. The team gave it their all and showed the hard effort, but they walked off of the mat with regrets and questions in regards to what more they could have done to recover or make the end result better.

After placing 3rd out of twenty eight teams in prelims, the team knew they had to step it up. With their spare time, they practiced and discussed what more could be done for the next day’s finals.

On finals day, team was more than ready. After preforming, the team hit a zero, dropping not one stunt and hitting everything to the fullest. However after finals, the team was still behind by 0.1 points to American Leadership Academy (Queens Creek). With all the frustration and anger, our SDHS girls accepted the loss and cheered on as the winners were called.

Sophomore Aubrey Hays explains that “even though it is very unfortunate and unfair for the seniors to say the least, the only thing the team can do is grow and move on with the lesson for next season.” Instead of mourn their loss, our SDHS spiritline chose to honor the hard work that they had put in.