- A Nebraska high-school senior competed alone at her state's cheer competition this month.
- The rest of the team had recently quit the cheerleading squad.
A week and a half before the Nebraska State Cheer and Dance Championships, three freshmen quit the Morrill High School cheerleading squad for personal reasons, leaving just one girl on the team: Katrina Kohel, a senior.
She and her coach, April Ott, told Insider they debated what to do next. Would they make the five-hour trip to Grand Island, Nebraska, to watch the three-day high-school dance-and-cheer competition? Would they sit it out altogether?
Neither of those options worked for Kohel. After talking it over with her mom, she told Ott she wanted to make the trip to perform the routine she'd worked hard to perfect all season, even if that meant taking the mat by herself.
"I kind of knew as soon as I found out I was going to be the only one that I still wanted to go out and cheer even if I was going to be myself," Kohel said. "It wasn't a hard decision."
Kohel told Insider that she's been cheering on her high school's team for four years and that she'd dreamed of being a cheerleader since her parents took her to the high-school football games as a little girl.
"I've put a lot of time into cheer. It's just always been a part of who I am, so I didn't want to end on that note. I wanted to go out on a high one," Kohel said. "For that to come true, I didn't want to end it just by going to watch state. I wanted to compete."
Kohel and Ott reworked the routine and practiced it daily
Kohel and Ott got to work redoing the routine, which had initially been choreographed for four. They said they removed stunts and reworked signs so that one person could use them.
They said they practiced together for an hour every day leading up to the competition. Kohel said she wasn't nervous or scared but was focused on relearning and perfecting her routine.
"She was completely confident the whole week that we practiced," Ott said. "It was just 100% confidence, and she just owned it."
Kohel's performance was scheduled for Friday, February 17. The night before, after a basketball game Kohel played in, Ott and her family drove Kohel the five hours to Grand Island.
Kohel said Ott's daughter, who'd cheered on Morrill High School's team with Kohel for the past three years, provided comfort throughout what Kohel described as a "hectic" experience.
"It felt like she was out there cheering with me," Kohel said. "That helped calm me down, just having her there and having her support."
Her grandparents also tagged along. Her parents and brother couldn't join because her brother had a wrestling match, and her parents coach his wrestling team. But thanks to a friend at Kohel's competition, her parents were able to stream her performance on Facebook Live.
Kohel said that when Friday came, she was feeling good until she started watching the other teams' routines. She added that her coach "made me nervous, because she got nervous."
But she said that once she got backstage, she "just took a deep breath and calmed down."
"When I got on the mat, everything just cleared, and my mind went blank," Kohel said. "I did the routine on muscle memory."
What she remembers most from the performance, though, is the outpouring of support from the other teams — Kohel recalled that they "almost all stopped to tell me 'good job' or they're proud of me or give me hug."
"It's almost overwhelming, the amount of support I got from all of them," she continued. "The whole arena was cheering me on. It wasn't just one little section — it was the whole arena."
Ott said the experience "gave me goosebumps."
Kohel was the first solo cheer performer at the competition
Kohel and Ott said that this was Morrill High School's third year competing at the state championships and that Kohel became the first solo performer from the high school and at the competition. She came in eighth place out of 12 — Ott and Kohel said they were thrilled about that, as it was the highest the squad had ever placed.
"I felt ready, and I felt confident in myself," Kohel said. "I'm completely thrilled with how I placed, and I'm so overjoyed with how I did."
Ott agreed with her student, saying she was "super proud of her for wanting to finish what she started."
"This whole thing has been very much incredible," Ott, who started coaching the cheer team the same year Kohel joined, said.
"It's been fun to watch her learn and grow and prosper through our program at cheer here at Morrill," she added. "We've kind of grown up together and learned the ropes. I didn't know much about cheer, she didn't know much about cheer, but we figured it out the last four years, and the journey has been amazing."
She added: "We've all got struggles in our lives. We've all got obstacles. We've all got adversities within us and around us. And just for her to acknowledge that 'I can do this, Coach, and I'm going to go do it' has just been an inspiration."