Cheer Regionals are a big deal for a lot of cheerleaders. The competition usually last a whole day and there are 3 different sessions. This year they took place on October 2 at Lindenwood College. A lot of schools go, this year there were about 84 schools attending, all of which were split up into about 15 divisions. Farmington last won Cheer Regionals in 2019. We haven’t won since but it is still a really great experience for the people that go. This year we did not win but we did make it to State which is still good.
This year’s Cheer Regionals were a lot of fun as the team got to meet all kinds of new people and even became friends with a team from Mexico Missouri. Genevieve Willmann says she thinks Cheer Regionals are better than just cheering at games because “We finally have people cheering for us and congratulating us on doing good.” Everyone loves getting praise and congratulations, and when it comes to school cheer it’s their job to cheer for other people and get the crowd and everyone else cheering too. At Cheer Regionals they get to go cheer and do their thing but this time they’re the ones getting the congradulations and praise.
The girls started preparing for regionals in the summer. They weren’t sure how they were going to do but they were very confident and very optimistic. Olivia Rastopher says that going in they “focused less on a certain place and more about making it to state.” They got fourth place in their division, which to someone outside of the cheer world may not seem very impressive but they did qualify for state so they were very proud.
There are tons of people that go to cheer regionals every year. Olivia Rastopher says that all four years she’s been, any indoor stadium they perform at is completely overflowed and packed, “and not just with cheerleaders but with family and friends.” She’s even seen entire student sections make the trip to watch their cheer team perform. Willmann says the biggest challenge for her was “trying to stay confident and trusting that [she] can do good.” Olivia Rastopher says that the biggest challenge for her is “the fact that you only get one chance.” They get one chance to prove themselves and show off what they’ve been working on all year. It’s stressful because a stunt that has hit all year can suddenly fall and a stunt that has never hit before can suddenly hit perfectly. “It feels like a gamble but that’s a risk that we all collectively take. We just have to leave it all on the mat and pray and as cheesy as it sounds you really have to believe in yourself and trust your teammates.”