In the 2023 season, the Sabercats placed third in the Small Division 1 Varsity Gameday bracket and made the semi-finals Round 2 for Small Divison 1 Varisty Traditional, but this 2024 season they were determined to do better.
After countless hours of practice, the Sabercats secured a spot in Orlando for the national Universal Cheerleaders Association competition. They managed to place second in the national for Small Division 1 Gameday bracket.
“Second in the nation is amazing and I think we were all so proud of each other and how far we’ve come from the beginning of the year,” senior Madi Ryneer says.
The Sabercats were able to make it through three rounds in the largest division in the nation, Small Division 1 Traditional, finishing twenty-seventh overall.
Their placing second now marks the end of the 2024 cheer spring season.
“I was super happy leaving the team knowing they will do great and that Fossil Ridge Cheerleading as a program will continue to improve and impress everyone,” Ryneer expresses.
For the first time in history, the Fossil Ridge Dance Team (FRDT) not only qualified for national finalists but placed eighth for the Medium Varsity Hip Hop Division at the Dance Team Union (DTU) Nationals held in Orlando Florida.
In the preliminary competition, Fossil placed seventeenth, but in less than twenty-four hours they cleaned up the act and managed to place in the top eight.
“We didn’t necessarily have any expectations going into it so we definitely surprised ourselves with how many places we jumped up between prelims to semis to finals,” captain Alex Yvars says.
On December 9, 2023, the FRDT placed fourth in the CHSAA State Spirit Championship out of twenty-two teams and only sixty days later they did the same routine in Orlando for the DTU Nationals.
For seniors Jaidyn Driscoll, Avery Gardner, Sarah Heller, Paige Lemmon, Alyssa Perez, and Yvars this was their final competition of the season.
“I am super thrilled about our placement… I’m mostly just really proud of my team for all the hard work we put in and how much we were able to improve in just [a] few hours of practice,” Yvars exclaims.
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