Sixteen girls with white tennis shoes, perfect buns, and matching lipstick make their way to the mat. They are in front of a panel of judges, and behind them are their parents, ready to chant the cheers along with them. They have trained long and hard for this, and now they are ready for their 2 minutes and 30 seconds of perfection. 

“No one sees the time and effort and the bruises and the sweat and the tears that go into everything that we do outside of cheering  [on the football team] on Friday night,” said competition cheer coach Megan Savage. 

The work begins right after tryouts in May. Their summer training is filled with intensive stunt and choreography camps and weight lifting, and once the school year begins, they have practices four to five times a week for two hours. 

Senior co-captain Parker Dykes said, “It’s easy to overlook how hard it can be, but you are giving 150% of yourself for that time.”

On the day of competitions, the girls meet up at St. Pius X with their hair and makeup ready. One key aspect the judges are looking for is uniformity, which means everyone is required to have the same hairstyle and makeup look. 

They arrive at the competition 90 minutes early and warm up their tumbling and running through their routine, but it’s not all work and no play. Their coaches give each girl snack packs and small gifts, such as lip balm and water bottles with their name on it. While they wait for their turn to perform, they aso enjoy taking pictures with each other. 

“There is never a boring part,” said junior Ella Morin. 

Even though the teams are competing against each other, the atmosphere is surprisingly supportive. 

“All the girls are saying, ‘Good luck to us,’ and are super supportive. It’s really special,” said junior Emerson Kelley.  

No matter how high they place, though, their routine will never be the exact same because they continue adding more complex components throughout the season, such as more advanced tumbling and stunts, in hopes of scoring more points for complexity. But the routine itself isn’t the only aspect the judges are focused on.

“They aren’t just graded on their skills, but how loud they are,” Coach Savage said. “We get points taken off if a judge doesn’t see them smiling throughout the whole routine.”

Their next competition is Regions on November 8 at Walnut Grove High School, where the girls with white tennis shoes, perfect buns, and matching lipstick will leave it all on the mat and hope their hard work has paid off and they advance to State.