After adjusting to a new coach and adding new faces, the pom team brought home its first Game Day State Championship Nov. 11 in their second year competing at the event.

“We were all still pretty new to it all,” senior Reese Parks said. “We still had to lead the team with what we knew, so we were pretty hard on the underclassmen with pushing everyone, but it clearly paid off.”

This was the team’s first time competing with their new head coach Tasha Hinex. Hinex has been coaching at Oklahoma City University for 14 years and says she holds herself as well as those around her to high standards.  

“Overall I wanted the team to be taken seriously, and I wanted the team to be challenged and work towards goals as well as grow not only as dancers but humans in general,” Hinex said.

Despite still being new to the event, the team said they expected themselves to place top three at both Regionals and State. 

“When we went to regionals and got 4th that shocked us a little bit but made us push harder for state,” Parks said. 

The team looked at what the judges liked and did not like last year, and formed a game plan around what they thought they could improve on. Now that they have won this year, they are hoping to keep that trend going. 

“This will set the tone because now more people are going to see us as winners,” freshman Libby Chansolme said. “The more we win, the more other teams will see us as their biggest competition, which is good.”

Chansolme said practices leading up to state were hard and included lots of corrections and motivational talks.

“It was seriously the best feeling,” Parks said. “There is no better feeling than winning because you know all your time and hard work really did pay off. I was honestly in complete shock after we won because it was just a crazy good feeling.”

The team says they are focused on preparing for its next competition: Jazz State Dec. 10.