Cheer squad returns to competition under new coaches
The Cassville cheer program is set to do something on Sunday it hasn’t in more than 5 years — compete in a cheer competition.
The squad will compete on Sunday in the 8-team small co-ed division at the Regional in St. Charles. Cassville is aiming for a top-five finish and a bid to state.
Victoria Henbest, co-head coach along with Abby Voris, said she coached a year of middle school cheer in 2017-2018, and Voris was the middle school cheer coach last year.
“We worked at Michael’s together a while ago, too,” she said. “We decided together if the high school cheer position opened, we’d try to do high school and middle school together to make it a seamless transition from middle to high school.”
Both coaches cheered their whole high school careers at Cassville, Henbest from 2007-2011 and Voris from 20122016. The duo took the reins of the program with competing in mind.
“We practiced all summer, three times a week, and up to this weekend, we’ve practiced nearly every day,” Henbest said. “The main thing for us going is to see what good cheer is and start working toward some goals. We need to go and let them see what it is, because some don’t have any idea what it’s about.
“If we win, great, but if not, we will be happy we went, accomplished our goal and got the experience.”
One challenge the team faces is being one of the smallest schools in its division. With one boy on the team, Cassville is moved into the small co-ed category with much fewer teams to divide by school size.
Henbest said the summer practices were heavily focused on learning and perfecting cheers, readying the team for Friday nights. After that, they started building competition skills and a routine.
“We also throw some of our competition stunts at games for practice, and because some of the girls are a bit nervous in front of crowds,” she said. “If we want to do some different stuff, we’ll do some progression skills for stuff we don’t use in the routine necessarily but are useful. We practice those before the game so we know we can hit them.” Looking toward the competition, Henbest said the Wildcats’ biggest challenge will be pyramids.
“Pyramids have several working factors, and if one person is not doing one thing correctly, it can all come down,” she said.
“A support fall may not affect everyone, but if a pyramid falls, everyone falls on one another and that’s more deductions.”
Henbest there is also a fair deal of sequencing and transitioning, and when going from skill to skill to skill, all skills must be there or things can fall apart.
Helping prevent any hiccups are the team’s two captains, senior Jillian LeCompte, who is also Henbest’s sister, and junior Zoe Coupland.
“They have really taken charge and are keeping everybody motivated,” Henbest said. “When we are working on a skill and fall, they keep the team from getting discouraged and say to get up and run it again. They keep the energy up and motivated to continue. They are also great about keeping everyone’s attitudes in check, which makes things easy for us as coaches.”
If Cassville qualifies for the state competition, it will be held Dec. 10-11. Five teams advanced from a seven-team regional in Kansas City last weekend.
