- A Nebraska high school senior competed alone at her state's cheer competition earlier this month.
- The rest of the team had quit the cheerleading squad earlier in the week.
- She said "it wasn't a hard decision" to make and she is "thrilled" with how her performance went.
A week and a half before the Nebraska State Cheer & Dance Championships, three freshmen girls quit the Morrill High School cheerleading squad for personal reasons, leaving just one girl on the team: senior Katrina Kohel.
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. Instead, after talking it over with her mom, she told Ott she wanted to make the trip to states to perform the routine she had worked hard to perfect all season, even if that meant taking the mat by herself.
"I kinda 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 she's been cheering on her high school's team for four years and had dreamed of being a cheerleader when her parents would take 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 then got to work redoing the routine initially choreographed for four. They said they removed stunts from the performance and reworked signs so they could be used by one person.
They practiced together for an hour every day leading up to the competition, they said. Kohel said that leading up to the competition she wasn't "nervous or scared," rather she was "focused" on relearning and perfecting her routine.
"She was completely confident the whole week that we practiced. It was just 100% confidence, and she just owned it," Ott said.
Kohel's performance was scheduled for February 17. The night before, following a basketball game Kohel played in, Ott and her family drove Kohel the five hours to Grand Island.
Ott's daughter cheered on Morrill High School's team with Kohel for the past three years and provided comfort to Kohel throughout the "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.
When Friday came, Kohel said was feeling good until she started watching the other teams' routines, and her "coach made me nervous because she got nervous."
But once she got backstage, "I just took a deep breath and calmed down," Kohel told Insider.
"When I got on the mat, everything just cleared and my mind went blank. I did the routine on muscle memory," Kohel said.
What she remembers most from the performance, though, is the outpouring of support from the other teams. They "almost all stopped to tell me 'good job,' or they're proud of me or give me hug," Kohel recalled.
"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
This was Morrill High School's third year competing at the state championships, and Kohel became the first solo performer from the high school and at the competition, ever. She also came in eighth place out of 12, something Ott and Kohel are "thrilled" about, as it's the highest the squad has 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 is "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 that watching her student go through with this performance has been "an inspiration."
"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."