Cheer team takes fifth at nationals

While many of the teams competing at the 2022 National High School Cheerleading Championship may not have known where Wyoming is, they're going to remember Green River.

The Green River High School Wolves Cheerleading team headed to Orlando, Florida last week to take part in the national competition after their recent first place win at the Wyoming state competition. They returned from nationals this week taking fifth in the nation in the Medium Varsity Coed (MVC) Game Day competition.

"It was an amazing experience," Coach Allison Luna said. "There's really nothing like going to the ESPN center, from the moment you walk in to having other teams actually know who we are now."

In their second year at nationals, the Green River team faced teams who've been competing for many years coming from schools with thousands of students. The Wolves held their own and made their presence felt, competing through semifinals and facing 20 teams in the final round of their division.

The cheer team also had to come back from a disappointing performance in the Traditional Varsity Game Day division - the same performance they'd used to win state.

"That was really hard to have to come around and come out of that really disappointed and then change gears and have two perfect routines," Luna said. "But the kids totally overcame all of those things and that was awesome."

Going into the MVC competition, the team had to work off the judge's comments and deal with the subjective nature of cheerleading in order to find what the judges wanted and make their routine better. However, the team rose to the challenge.

"They are never satisfied," Luna said of the team. "They always want to be better."

Watching the team be better and do so well at nationals was a proud coaching moment for Luna, with the most rewarding feeling being "getting to see those kids come off the mat and just be so ecstatic and proud of themselves."

Seeing the growth of the team has been especially exciting for Luna since she's been coaching some of the team members for the past several years and has watched their progress.

"It's nice, the bond that we have, and the trust that they have in me as a coach and in my assistant coaches," Luna said. "It's just a bond that we really can't break."

Luna also expressed her thanks for her assistant coaches, Mikayla Smart and Ryli Drake, and said she couldn't do the program without them.

Although they just got back from nationals, Luna and the team won't have much of a break, already preparing for open gym sessions and tryouts for next season beginning in a few weeks. Those who join the cheer program participate from the summer until March, with long practice hours and lots of performances. Luna challenged the common perception of "rah rah cheerleaders" who don't do much, saying the cheer team is competitive and many people can't work as hard as they do.

Going into the future, Luna wants to continue to grow the program and see further improvement.

"We're just always trying to do more," Luna said. "Whether it's coaches or kids, it's just really cool to see us coming and working really hard all together and busting our butts to try to be the best program in Wyoming."