The cheer squad traveled to Kansas City on Nov. 9 for the Missouri regional competition where they placed first in the large non-tumbling game day division. 

Each team was scored on different categories out of 100, and a score of 80 or above got them a bid to Nationals. The squad succeeded with a score of 88.8 out of 100, assistant coach Lindsay Reed said. 

“They are judged on their band chant, their situational sideline, their cheer, and their fight song, and they are judged on their performance on each of those categories out of 100 and they got a 88.8 which gave us the bid to Nationals,” Reed said.

Junior Payton Seifert said getting through the competition was nerve wracking, but the team spirit helped them push through and brought them closer together.

“I feel like whenever it came down to it we didn’t know if we were going to do good but then I remember right as we went on we were all like, ‘I love you guys, you got this, we can do anything even if it goes badly, just try your best and we’ll get through it.’ Also, throughout it, looking at each other and seeing us smile made us feel better about it,” Seifert said.

Now, the Falcons have three months to perfect their performance for Nationals which will be on Feb. 5-10. Head coach Lauren Lamar said to prepare for Nationals they will fix the things the judges marked down on their score sheet to better their performance.

“We look at the judge’s comments and try to take those and improve on certain areas, so we watch the film and see where and what we need to fix from the judge’s sheets,” Lamar said.

This is the team’s second year in a row of competing at Nationals. Senior Sienna Walton said the best part last year was going to the Disney parks.

“Last year on our off days, we went to Disney, and this year I’m most excited to go to Epcot because all the good food is at Epcot and you go to all the different countries. That was the best part,” Walton said.