On Friday, November 7th, our Greenup County cheerleading squad traveled to Lexington, Kentucky, to compete in the annual Bluegrass Regional. It was held at the Rupp Arena Convention Center on Saturday, November 8th. It was sponsored by UCA in partnership with Varsity spirit.

The atmosphere of the whole trip was intense and cutthroat. On Friday, the squad visited the Pep Club gym on the outskirts of Lexington. This was to run out their routine the last time before the competition heated up, while helping them work out some beforehand jitters. A lot was riding on how they placed at regionals this year. This regionals would put out the word on what all would be seen in Orlando, Florida, at nationals this February.

The squad here at GCHS consists of a total of 22 girls. With the fault of many injuries throughout the season, 20 girls competed at this competition. This puts them in the category of large all-girl, which is 16-21 girls. In this division was their rival Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School, who currently holds the 2008 title of large all-girl National Champions. In the past 5 years, Greenup County and Dunbar cheerleaders have not competed in the same division. In these same five years, they have gone undefeated. In the history of cheerleading, Greenup County has never lost to Dunbar. They were also up against two smaller squads George Rogers Clark High School and Calloway County High School.

The four of these squads were overall very entertaining and unique. But none of them were precise or anywhere where they need to be for nationals. While there were faults, you could see that some were better than others. George Rogers Clark, who was expected to be awesome this year, had an amazing routine, but didn’t put on a good show and fell too many times to count. Calloway County’s routine was solid, but it lacked sharpness. Despite this, it was the only routine that actually “hit.” Dunbar opened great and had few falls, but they were down for the count after the first 30 seconds. 4 of their 5 partner stunts totally bombed and so did one side of their end mount. GCHS had only one fall and little bobbles here and there.

The overall outcome was pleasing to all of the fans at GCHS. George Rogers Clark received 4th place, and Dunbar received a 3rd place. Calloway County received 2nd place, while GCHS brought home the 1st place trophy. You could see the heartbroken faces of the Dunbar cheerleaders as they received the third place trophy. While the GCHS cheerleaders are not gloaters or in any way insensitive, everyone was very proud to have broken Dunbar’s winning streak.

With this win under GCHS’ belt, they now have a (2-0) record this year. Their next performance will be in mid-January at another UCA regional.