After winning the 5A state competition last year, the varsity competition cheerleading team is looking to repeat their success and win the school’s fourth state championship in cheerleading. There’s no question that the competition cheer team is dominating this season: they’ve placed first in every competition they have competed in this season.

This year the team switched from an all girls team to coed. Junior Ross Robertson and senior Critter Eulenfield joined the team this season. In addition to Ross and Critter, there are four seniors, eight juniors and five sophomores on team. By switching to a coed cheerleading team, McIntosh competes with teams against whom they have never competed. While last year the cheerleaders were competing against schools like Northgate and Ola, they are now competing against schools like Luella and Parkview at the state level.

Junior Bailey Manson said, “Now that we compete in the coed division, competition is a bit different, but nothing we can’t handle.” Junior Savannah Laux agreed with Bailey and said, “This year in the coed division has definitely been different than before, but we’ve learned a lot from it. We always strive for a perfectly executed routine, and go out and improve our score week by week until the end of the season.”

The ultimate goal is to repeat as state champions, but this season there is more motivation behind the cheerleaders’ drive to win another championship. Head coach Julie Goss was diagnosed with breast cancer in late September, and now everything the cheerleaders do at practice and at competitions is for her. The cheerleaders have two sayings this season: Pray for Goss and Do It For Goss. Bailey said, “We always say at practice [that] we do it for Goss. After [she] was diagnosed with breast cancer, we compete and perform for her. Everything we do at practice is for her and her dreams she had in us. Winning another state championship would be awesome, but winning a state championship for Ms. Goss would be even greater.”

The team has won first place at every competition they have competed in so far, and at the competition at Columbus State University, there was a 61 point difference between McIntosh and second place. Most recently, they competed at Northgate High School on Oct. 25.

The team will compete at sectionals at Columbus State University on Nov. 8 and at the state championship at the Columbus Civic Center on Nov. 15.