MILLVILLE – A police escort and fire engine, both with lights and sirens blaring, delivered special packages on a snowy Sunday afternoon in Millville. The Ridgeline cheer squad returned from a competition in Southern California where they had just been crowned national champions at the United Spirit Association Nationals in Anaheim.
Dozens of family members, school administrators and fellow students welcomed the cheer squad and their coaches as they arrived at the school with banners, poms, sparklers and lots of cheers.
“This is so amazing and wonderful,” exclaimed cheer coach Jenny Stolworthy after she exited the bus. “We have such an amazing community and great parents and administrators….We are just so blessed and so full of gratitude that we were even able to do that. We were only able to do it because the community supported us and our administration supported us.”
“It’s a really cool experience for us,” exclaimed competition captain and Ridgeline senior Lyla Anderson, “because as cheerleaders we’re used to cheering others on and to be cheered on is such an overwhelming feeling for us, to feel fully appreciated and all our hard work to be seen.”
Stolworthy said the team includes 40 girls and they performed two routines with 20 girls in each routine, competing among dozens of cheer squads from around the west, including Bear River, Box Elder and a number of other teams from Utah. Ridgeline’s Varsity Show Cheer qualified to advance to the final competition on Saturday and ended up winning the national championship in the Super/Large category.
Each show lasts two-and-a-half minutes, includes stunts, tumbling, and a crowd leading cheer.
“It was so amazing watching this team, watching all of this hard work,” said competition captain and Ridgeline senior Kia Child, “for the last nine months, watching all this hard work go into this most amazing, perfect routine I’ve ever seen. They worked so hard and deserved every second of that win.”
Anderson said the work for this national championship began last March when tryouts began.
“It’s consisted of football games, basketball games, volleyball, soccer, wrestling, going to everybody else’s state while competing during our own season, which is the winter season, and competing, every weekend, practicing every day, living at the school basically.”
Child said the students wouldn’t have been able to achieve their national win without the help and care from coaches and administrators.
“They put in so much, they put in so much of their time in practice, pushing all of us past our limits. I love our coaches so much. They care so much about us, inside of cheer, outside of cheer. They’re putting all of their time into us. We are so appreciative. They are what really helped us through this win.”
Some members of the cheer squad will be traveling to Cedar City this week to support both the Ridgeline boys and girls basketball teams who will be competing in the 4A basketball playoffs on the campus of Southern Utah University.