Cheers to Success: Patriots reclaim state title

up the energy. So that’s what they did.

A year-long’s dedication and hard work paid off, as Millard South’s varsity cheerleading squad won state for the first time since 2020. With practice every day plus performances at basketball games, showcases with other schools, and even former varsity cheerleaders coming to critique, this state win made it all worth it.

Junior Kinsley Shed, “I stayed motivated by thinking about how I wanted to do this not only for myself, but for my teammates, aka, my best friends.”

A few Millard South Varsity Cheerleaders came and critiqued the team throughout the year. With returners Mckenzie Sonier, Sydney Gerace, Kylie Beadle Carter, Pyper Thompson, Kaylee Mccdermott, Tori Tevelde, and Mallory Childers coming back and giving their input. One thing that really stuck with the varsity team, and left a feeling of empowerment and hope, was all of the alumni coming back and saying, “This routine could definitely win state. You just need to keep the energy up. The choreography is cute and original. I think it looks good, it’s just little things.” Almost all of the alumni for the most part, said the same thing. Keep

This varsity cheer squad worked hard, with their seven seniors and eight underclassmen. All of these girls spent more than 100 hours to nail down and perfect their routine, all for first place in their division of non-building, non-tumbling, traditional.

Senior Allison Kilzer was definitely one of the more involved students not only on the team, but inside and outside of school as well. With AP classes, being a DECA president, being a manager at UrbanAir, keeping straight A’s, doing baton outside of school, and being a 3-year Varsity Cheerleader, Kilzer had made many sacrifices in between all of that. “To be honest, I don’t know how I did it, but I enjoyed everything I did, so like, it never felt like a drag to do anything.” Kilzer found a way to balance all of these opportunities, and still won state. She had to skip some practices for baton in place for cheer. She worked later into the nights, and sometimes right after a 3 hour cheer practice.

It wasn’t just Allison who made sacrifices for the squad. There were many sacrifices made between all of the members of this team.

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They had to shorten work schedules and quit jobs that didn’t allow for the cheerleaders to prioritize cheer over everything. Many of the squad members had to give up spending time with family, friends, and boyfriends, for early morning Saturday practices, and after school practices every day except Fridays. Coming home late was expected, as Shari would make them stay later if she didn’t feel the routine had been perfected enough that day. As the time was coming closer to state, however, the team had some more sacrifices to be made.

“Well I would have to say I was very stressed out at first and started crying, but then I took a deep breath and told myself I could do it. And then we won!” Junior Brittany Huseth stated, after finding out, the day of state, that a flag that they had added to the routine was left at Millard South.

This wasn’t the only issue either. Senior Marybeth Meiyer, Ella Helm, and Junior Olivia Ellison, were all injured with strained or pulled muscles the day of state.When Helm was asked how she felt about herself being injured day of state,