SHS wins regional; will now go for fifth-straight state title

Sikeston junior Kelsey Jenkins is lifted by seniors Morgan Fraser, Natalie Bohannon and Megan Dacus during a recent practice at Midwest Gymnastics. David Jenkins, Staff

SIKESTON -- The Sikeston High School cheerleading squad advanced one step closer to their fifth-straight state championship last week, beating Park Hills Central High School for the Southeast Missouri Regional Championship.

"It felt really good because we practice so hard and it's nice to see your practice pay off," senior team member Hannah Uthoff said.

With this year's regionals competition being moved up three weeks from prior years, Sikeston coach Wanda Throop credits the girls work ethic to them being ready on time.

"We started practicing at the end of school and we practiced until the new dead week time when the coaches and athletes can't be together," she said. "We skipped that week and started practicing again.

"These girls have worked extremely hard. They've worked as a group, got it together and did a very difficult routine. They did an excellent job."

Throop is one of three coaches helping guide Sikeston's cheerleading squad with Tricia Keefer and Jaclyn Scott making up the rest of the staff.

While they don't know their official scores yet, head cheerleader Morgan Fraser said she thought is was definitely a tight competition and was glad to see her team step up when it counted.

"I felt like we did a really good job as a squad," she said. "We had a couple little dents in there that could have been fixed easily, but I think we really pulled through.

"I think we were all very nervous. The squad we went up against was definitively good as well, so it was a great feeling when we won because we weren't sure it was going to happen."

Though regionals just wrapped a week ago and the state tournament isn't until Nov. 20 in Columbia, Sikeston's squad won't get much rest.

Throop said her girls will start preparing for the state tournament as well as high school sports seasons in about two weeks.

With no group of girls wanting to be the ones to break Sikeston's current championship streak, Fraser said a state title is high on her priority list for the upcoming year.

"That is the most important thing of my senior year," she said. "College is up there, but winning that five-peat would be the best thing ever."

Fraser's teammate Natalie Bohannon, also a senior, added that while the pressure will be there for the seniors, she's confident the team has a strong young nucleus that can step up and contribute.

"(The seniors) know what to expect, but the girls who have came up and haven't been to state yet are a really strong group of people and I feel like they're going to make us stronger than we have been before."

While they don't have a routine choreographed yet, Throop said she expects their state routine to be approximately 2 minutes and 40 seconds with a minute and ten seconds of cheer and a minute thirty seconds of dance/music.

And though they'll be learning the routine on top of cheering for Sikeston's many fall sports, not to mention schoolwork, Throop is confident in her girl's abilities.

"They have a lot of physical talent, but they also have a lot of determination and they just keep working," she said. "They just don't quit until they get it right and that's something you can't really teach someone. They either have the drive or they don't."