Barnwell High competition cheer team competes at state

The Barnwell High School Competitive Cheer Team arrived at BHS early Saturday morning, Nov. 19, after a very late-night cheering for the Warhorses in Kershaw during the third round of the AA State Football tournament the night before. What could possibly bring the cheerleaders back so early on a Saturday morning, you might ask. The answer would be, for a trip to Columbia to compete in South Carolina High School League’s State Competitive Cheer Competition.

This was Barnwell’s first State Competition of this kind. In the 2018-2019 school year and again in the 2019-2020 school year, the Barnwell Warhorses competed in the State Gameday Cheer Invitational Championships. Barnwell was crowned AA State Champions both years.

This new format was different. According to Barnwell’s Cheer Coach Amy Williams, “The Gameday championship is a one-day competition that has three preliminaries: fight song, crowd cheer, and band dance. Based on those performances, seven teams move on to finals. The finals is a three-minute routine that incorporates all three of the preliminaries into one routine. It’s more like sideline skills. This new competition requires that you do a two-minute, 15-second routine that includes jumps, primary stunts, secondary stunts, pyramid, dance, running tumbling and standing tumbling. It’s a lot harder and you have to attend at least two regional competitions. It’s the school’s equivalent to all-star cheer.”

Williams continued saying, “I knew going into this season that we had a lot of work to do to get state ready. Many of these athletes had no experience with competition style cheerleading and that’s a whole different world from sideline. The athletes were given a summer conditioning schedule and had to check in daily when it was completed. This was the only solution to the issue that we didn’t have the facilities or equipment for many in-person practices. The athletes didn’t disappoint and for the most part, they delivered.”

Regular sideline cheering for football or basketball is time consuming, but competitive cheer requires a great commitment from the participants.

“Once in person training began, we worked countless hours fixing timing issues, confidence issues, and the overall look of the routine. We decided for state we were going to up our stunt difficulty. Then some unforeseen injuries occurred and athletes were rearranged. With all those hiccups, I was pleased with our state performance. This was our building year, which means we laid the foundation. Next season, my goal is to build the dream team. My favorite message to send to each athlete is that two things can happen at a competition, you either win or you learn. These amazing athletes learned and progressed beautifully,” said Coach Williams.

Barnwell had a good performance and finished seventh in the state, ahead of some good teams such as Landrum, Pelion, and Ninety-Six. Gray Collegiate and Chesnee were tied for top scores, and Gray Collegiate won the championship on tie-breaker points.

Barnwell will miss seniors Reid Barker and Jayla Neal next year, but has a great group of athletes returning. Other members include juniors Sara Rudd, Anna Kate Richardson, and Katelynn Ryan along with sophomores Khirston Robinson, Carlee Hooper, and Isabel Hiltebridle. The freshmen are represented by De’Montrez Williams and middle schoolers Molly Wilson, Eriana James, Payslee Mead, Jenny Nguyen, Journee Ford, Caylee Davis, and Shelby Jackson.

With such a great group of returning athletes and Coach Amy Williams leading them, there will be many more state championship competitions to come. Maybe a Competitive Cheer State Championship trophy is in Barnwell’s future. There is a perfect spot for it, right between the two Gameday State Championship trophies.