De Soto High School’s cheer team is getting ready for its first in-person competition since 2019. Their competition will be on Nov. 20 in Topeka.

Last year, due to Covid-19 the cheer competition was online. Instead of doing it in person, all the schools sent in a video of their routines. DHS’ routine made it to the 5A finals where the Wildcats placed sixth.

A lot of the girls on the team are excited because they weren’t able to go to an in-person competition last year.

“It isn’t a Covid year so it is exciting to have an in-person experience,” sophomore Ava Thompson said. 

One thing that the cheer team will still need to work on before the competition is making sure they are loud enough. 

“The team needs to work on saying the words louder in the routine,” sophomore Ava Thompson said.

Senior team captain Gabby Sirabella thinks everyone has worked very hard and will find success at the competition. 

“I think the team will do an amazing job at state,” Sirabella said, “The team has really come together and has been working to perfect our routine. I think we will represent DHS well.”      

In Sirabella’s opinion, the cheer team has made fantastic progress so all they have left to work on is the little things; including looking more in sync when doing the routine. 

“We have already made great progress so far so we don’t really have that much more to work on, which is great,” Sirabella said. “The only thing we are going to continue to work on is perfecting our motions so we all look the same.”

Head coach Megan O’Boyle believes that the girls biggest weakness right now is their peppiness.

“They need to work on their confidence, energy and their peppiness during the routine,” O’Boyle said. 

O’Boyle is most excited to see how well the girls do because a lot of them haven’t been to an actual competition. 

“I’m excited for them to experience it [competition] because over half the team hasn’t gotten a chance to,” O’Boyle said.  “Also, I’m excited to see them do well because they have been working really hard.”

The cheer team has been practicing every Monday and Wednesday night, along with every Tuesday and Thursday morning.  During practice the girls work a lot on little things within their routine. They also do a lot of run-throughs of the routine to make sure they can have it perfect. 

“We spend time warming up and then we run the routine over and over,” O’Boyle said. “We have also been practicing a lot and putting a lot of effort into the practices.”

O’Boyle has a lot of confidence that they will get on the podium.

“My goal is to place third or higher,” O’Boyle said, “We are going against fifteen other schools so it is going to be tough, but I believe in us.”

At the competition the girls will be wearing their brand new uniforms.  They fundraised for two months to get the money for them.  The uniform is a white pleated skirt with a green and black long sleeve shirt that says DHS. 

With this being most of the girls’ first time at in-person State, they are all very excited to get back to normal and make the wildcats proud.