It’s been seven years since the last time the Utica High School cheer team won districts. Not only have they recently won districts, but they have placed first in every competition except for one.

“We worked really hard this season,” junior Raven Manziella said. “It started in the off season. We didn’t just get good out of no where; it was a process with a lot of hard work.”

They did this, however, with more injuries than they would have liked. With a total of four injuries this season, many of the cheerleaders had to compete in a different position than they were normally accustomed to.

“We did really good even with all of the injuries,” junior Ava Han said. “We have a lot of good cheerleaders and a lot of people really stepped up.”

Even with them having to pull up multiple cheerleaders from JV, the varsity team continues to win competition after competition.

The team, however, was not able to make it to the state competition, but were still very satisfied with how their season played out.

“Even though we didn’t make it to states, I’m still really proud of this team,” senior Caylie Conwell said. “It was a great year and the seniors next year will hopefully be able to go even farther than we did.”

With only the top four qualifying for regionals, Utica took seventh place out of 14 teams in the district competition.

This year the team had five seniors who will be graduating. However, there will be 11 incoming seniors who will be replacing them; and hopefully, they will help build on this year’s success.