Niwot Cheer Squad places 18th at State

The Niwot Cougars Cheerleading placed 18th at last weekend’s 4A State Spirit Championships, out of a field of 35.

Though it wasn’t as high a finish she’d hoped, coach Ashley Poindexter is nonetheless thrilled with her team and their development during the season. “I’m extremely proud of our state performance,” she said. “Compared to the beginning of the year, we looked like a totally different team as we had improved so much.”

With a team score of 61.8, Niwot bested local rivals Holy Family (60.9, 19th place) and Longmont (60.6, 20th place). Northern League foe Thompson Valley, which won the regional spirit competition in November, placed second overall at State, with a team score of 81.7. Erie, which was also a top performer at regionals, finished fifth overall, with 77.2 points.

“It was cool to see how competitive we could be with top teams in our division, and score-wise, we are actually very close to the top 10 teams,” said the coach.

With the competition season over for 2016, Poindexter and the cheer squad are now looking ahead to 2017.

“Being at State has only motivated us more to prepare for next season”, she said. “In practice we will be working on harder skills than we’ve ever tried, in hopes to improve our difficulty for next season.”

But just because the competition season is over for the squad, it doesn’t mean their work is done for the year. The team will be on the sidelines during home basketball games, and the girls will be holding a youth clinic next semester, a program Poindexter’s team especially looks forward to.

“We love showing the kids in Niwot how much fun it can be to be a cheerleader.”