The FHN Varsity Cheer team hasn’t made it to State since 2016. Since then, the team hasn’t tried to compete for state, but after competing at regionals this year the team will be competing in State on Nov. 2.
FHN senior and cheer captain Brooklyn Harvey and her team learned they will be competing in regionals on Sept. 21 over the summer between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years. Coach Tracy Wuertenberg asked her team how they felt about the chance to compete and when they were all on board with the idea, she knew it was a plan.
“We learned in the middle of summer. We all voted on it as a team, and then our coaches told us when school started,” Harvey said.
The team went to rigorous practice for regionals and continues to do so before state. The team started practice in July and has not stopped since then. They faced setbacks throughout the season due to injuries or other non-related school events. One injury was right before competition, and due to the injury the team had to change their routine in two days.
“I mean, the injury we had right before competition was of a girl walking,” Wuertenberg said. “Literally like walking on the floor, didn’t fall, didn’t trip, nothing, just walked and then collapsed.”
The team put in hard work and effort to their regional performance. Harvey, being the captain, had to work with her fellow senior captain, Madison Donnelly, and junior captain, Mykole Hodge, to help create the routine and rework the routine each time one of their teammates was out due to injury.
“[I was] tired and very stressed, because a lot of stuff set us back, but also accomplished when we would hit everything,” Harvey said. “I had to create the entire routine with my other captains, and we had to rework him multiple times due to injuries.”
After practicing for hours every afternoon they were finally getting what they were working towards regionals. After the captains had to rework their routines due to injuries, they knew it was going to be a difficult performance to hit because of the small reworking time they had. The team had to either place fifth or score 80% of their points. The team was able to place fifth in their division with Ozark taking first place.
“We were happy we finished and hit everything that we were supposed to, but we weren’t thrilled, because it wasn’t our routine that we wanted to perform,” Harvey said.
The team has seven weeks between their regionals and State performance. The performance will be at The University of Missouri on Nov. 2. The team plans to up their performance so they can show their true skills, and have all 14 girls healthy and injury-free. The team will continue to cheer after the state competition for the remainder of the high school football season and then for their basketball season.
“We’re upping the skill level of all of our stunts, and we’re adding in more tumbling and jumping,” Harvey said. “I’m just going to take it as easy as I can and not have to push myself as hard until we get a little closer to state already.”
