Although injured and unable to perform with her teammates at state this weekend in Portland, The Dalles cheer senior Lauryn Despain has chosen not to sulk about her missed opportunity.
She is using this time to act as a mentor, a teacher and an inspiration to the girls she has been around since Day 1.
“Because I’m not on the mat, I focus my energy on all the girls and stand in as a support system,” Despain said. “I go to every practice and help the coaches with music, a little critiquing and help a little with choreography. My girls and my coaches mean everything to me. They have worked unbelievably hard and deserve the “pure gold” they have been working hard to earn.”
The Dalles heads to state with three meet victories in a row, including back-to-back wins on consecutive days at the Cavalier Cheer Invitational and the Pacer Invitational Cheer Competition.
The Olympic-themed routine stays the same with the mantra of “going for gold” serving as their rallying cry.
The Dalles hits the mat at 1:40 p.m. and starts with its opening stunt and standing tumbling, then move into the opening stunt portion.
From there, the team performs their cheer, which includes jumps and running tumbling and then they move into the pyramid section. The grand finale is the dance routine.
Head coach Kelsey Sugg, assistants Andrea Pena and Alli Miles, and choreographer Tara Mahoney have been hard at work with this group in the past 10 days preparing this team.
“The area we have been focusing on the most is our stunt execution points,” Sugg said. “The majority of our scoresheet is execution, which is all about who puts out the cleanest routine on the floor. We have been grinding our stunts every practice, striving to hit every time, while cleaning up our formations and jumps and tumbling as much as we can.”
The Dalles is among 13 teams in the 5A class, vying to dethrone defending champion, South Albany.
While South Albany is the reigning title holder, Sugg said there are plenty of challengers to keep an eye on.
In addition to South Albany and The Dalles, Wilsonville, Churchill, Crater, Hood River Valley, Milwaukie, North Eugene, Parkrose, Redmond, Ridgeview, Summit and 2015 champion, Springfield, represent tough competition in the 5A ranks.
Mackenzie Smith is not worried about what the other teams do, however. So as long as The Dalles can maintain its crisp routine, fight for every stunt and get everyone on the same page, the results will take care of themselves.
“We need to continue to be consistent with our stunts and everything in general and we need to make sure every little detail is clean,” Smith said. “We are very hungry for this. We want to take home first so bad. We have been doing very well in practice and hitting just about everything.”
Although the team roster is blessed to have the senior leadership in Despain, Keagan Rice and Abbey Helseth, the newcomers, Samantha Stanley, Hannah Wallis, Giselle Schwartz, Sydney Fransen, Ella Morgan, Smith and Shivani Patel have shown they belong on the big stage.
Rice said that there are so many freshmen and newcomers who have caught her eye, especially Wallis and Morgan.
Wallis plays both basketball and does cheer, balancing school work and two daily practices, and Morgan, a freshman flyer, is an athlete who missed time earlier this year due to injury, but has improved with every practice and gives a tremendous amount of effort into every routine.
With a good core of youngsters making their first state performance, Rice added that positivity and reassurance from the team leaders is going to be critical.
Competing at smaller venues is one thing.
Hitting the mats at Veterans Memorial Coliseum is a different animal altogether.
“I think the coaches and the older, more experienced girls need to keep the team focused and remind them that those competitions were essentially practice,” Rice said. “The real thing is state and we just need to keep our eye on the prize.”
Since her first year in 2015, coach Sugg had hopes of returning The Dalles cheer to a program that dominated from 1998 until 2008, winning 11 cheerleading championships in a row.
She is dead-set on bringing back the winning legacy put in place by Kristi and Leslie Maley.
A former state champion herself, Sugg badly wants her group to experience that championship feeling.
That is why Sugg, Pena and Miles have put in the extra hours.
“I am so lucky to have them on my team,” Sugg said. “Andrea has a special eye for cleaning up my routine and helps tremendously in the dancing part of our routine. Alli has dedicated so much time to the program and we are forever grateful for her. Being a coach takes a lot of work, but I wouldn’t change it for the world and I wouldn’t be able to get through the year without those two by my side.”
Despain is beyond excited for this group, as they get set to compete at state.
The senior will be yelling and screaming from afar, as the team’s biggest fan, as they vie for a state championship.
Rice can feel that energy as well. “I’m going to be stressed, but I’ll have to keep in mind how far we have come and how happy and blessed I am to have been a part of such an amazing program,” Rice said. “Now’s the time to make it count. All our hard work over the past nine months is all for this one performance. We have this one shot to show off what we can do, and that’s frightening and exciting all in one.”
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