Panther cheer and dance is nationals-bound for the third straight year.
For the past several months Lynn Baker’s team has been hard at work, leading cheers at Panther home games and preparing routines for competition. At the Universal Cheerleaders’ Association Piedmont Regional in Concord this month, the team punched their tickets to UCA Nationals in Orlando early next year.
“I think our team did really good. It was our first time competing, and especially for some of the girls that have never competed before … I really felt like it was a special moment for them,” said veteran Kaylee Zachary. “It was a special moment for me too because it’s my last year, so I really thought it was a heartwarming moment, and we got a bid to nationals. They get to actually go to Nationals and compete on that huge [competition] floor, and it was really a heartwarming moment because they get to experience that.”
While Zachary will make her third trip to Nationals this February, Regionals was a brand-new experience for some of the team’s younger members. With a whirlwind schedule including two different performances, the day can take some getting used to.
“Once we arrive we usually stretch as a team, go through our stuff, sit down and visualize our routine and doing good in it. Then, usually we go backstage, warm up and wait in the hallway, and while we’re in the hallway we’ll get together and pray before,” said Brianna Quiroz, also a senior and multi-year veteran. “Kaylee leads our prayers, and then we also have a hype chant that we do and get hype together. Then they call us out and we perform, and we actually did really good in our Traditional [routine] – at the end everyone was so excited because we just knew we hit our routine, so we were all so pumped after that and feeling really good about ourselves. Then we repeated the same process for our Gameday routine, because we compete in two routines, and that was basically our day.”
Between a Traditional routine of intricately choreographed dances set to music, and a Gameday routine that replicates crowd-leading cheers teams might use on Friday nights, the team had a busy day to say the least. In addition to the jam-packed schedule, this year’s competition was also more demanding than in years past.
“It was kind of surreal. We’ve done it before, but this year they upped the score you have to have to get to Nationals, so we didn’t really know where we stood and we had to prove to ourselves that we could go,” said Quiroz. “So, when they called our names, I just remember everyone was looking around shocked, and then we all jumped up and were hugging each other and grabbing each other. It was a good experience, because the feeling when we finally realized that we got our bid, everyone was so upbeat and happy.”
As the team’s most experienced athletes, Quiroz and Zachary have played a key role in the most successful run in program history, as the first Panthers ever to compete at UCA Nationals. For the team’s other senior, Nationals will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
“It’s really cool for me, especially because I’ve never done high school cheer before,” said Molly Ramey. “I’ve done competitive cheer, so I’m used to competing, but I’m not used to the caliber of talent that they have. So, it’s different, but it’s been good for me to switch and learn new skills. It’s really exciting. … I’ve actually wanted to try out every single year of high school, and I put my name on the list, but I don’t know. I guess I was a little scared because it was a little bit out of my comfort zone because I’ve always been a competitive cheerleader, but I just decided [it’s] senior year – I might as well just go for it, and I’m glad I did.”
For veterans and newcomers alike, Regionals served as a payoff for months of hard work, as well as a chance to receive valuable feedback from judges. Between now and Nationals, the team will work overtime to perfect their routines.
“We were all down because our Gameday didn’t go how we wanted it to go, but we actually scored higher on our Gameday than our Traditional,” said Zachary. “Preparing for Regionals, we had guest [judges] come in and watch our routines, and they gave us different critiques on it. I feel like when we hear it from somebody else we immediately fix it and change it, and so I feel like hearing the judges critiques, now that we have it and what they [want] to see at Nationals, we’re really gonna put in the hard work here.”