It was a cold Saturday morning when we arrived at Troy Athens High School. When our team walked in the building, we could hear the crowd cheering, “T-R-O-Y-A-T-H-E-N-S … GO HAWKS!” It was about our 4th competition but, I was still nervous. It was Oak Parks first time ever being a competitive cheer team.

My coach’s kept saying how important it was to just relax, and I did try. It was just so hard because on the inside, I was panicking and jumping off of the walls because of my urge to win.

In my stunt group it was Cydney, Daijah, Penny and I. Every time I inhaled, my ribs felt like they were going to rupture because of my previous incident at the competition before. Cydney hurt her knee at practice attempting a tuck. Penny hurt her back cradling from an extension, and this was Daijah’s first time basing not to mention we had to do an OLE! So this wasn’t the best time for us to compete.

They called Oak Park to the mat. My lip was quivering and my body felt like jell-o. It was hundreds of people in the stands, yet it was so quiet you could hear a pen drop.

“Oak Park, you may approach the mat.” My teammates ran out onto the floor cheering, yelling and confident. Mikayla called the cheer, “Here we go! Ready… Set!” and I began. I fought through all of my pain and pulled of every skill. On the outside was a smile that shined brighter than the sun but, on the inside was pure pain.

When the stunting portion came, I just knew it was going to be horrible. I hoped for the best of course but, I knew it would be sloppy and get our scored knocked down some points.

Surprisingly, our stunt went up. Not on that but, it looked flawless! I looked over at Cydney and seen the tears rolling down her face. Daijah was struggling horribly but they both fought through it.

After the competition, we found out that we placed 7th out of the 14 teams. But, on that day…. I felt like a winner!