The Sedona Red Rock High School cheerleading squad has evolved under the new leadership of head coach Sarah Wishnewsky, becoming more active in the community and making long-term plans to become more competitive at the state level.
“Previously, the squad had never integrated dancing, stunting or tumbling, and we have implemented those things this year for the first time,” Wishnewsky said. “The girls have been practicing for months. Since it is a new team and they are learning the ins and outs, the goal is to compete at the state Game Day cheer competition next December, and this will be the first time Sedona has had a competitive cheer team.”
Wishnewsky and assistant coach Mariah McElrath plan to take the team to watch the Game Day competition this December to give the team a sense of what will be expected of them to be competitive at the state level.
“Once we compete at Game Day, we will work toward competing in cheer, dance and stunting competitions at the state level as well,” Wishnewsky said.“We have big dreams and big goals.” The team was previously not as involved and they didn’t have Spirit Fridays, junior co-captain Jaden Kuhn explained.
“Our cheer team has evolved in that way,” Kuhn said. “My goal is to make it the best team we’ve had. In past years, our team didn’t really have a name to it. I want to show people that cheer is a sport, not just something you do on the sidelines.”
However, Sedona sports fans can still expect the cheer squad to be rooting for the school’s sports teams during home games, including the boys’ soccer team in the fall and both basketball teams during the winter. Wishnewsky said they are also looking at ways to cheer for baseball during the spring season.
“I want them to have that experience of cheering on the track with the crowd [during soccer] because it’s a whole different game than basketball, and we don’t have football,” Wishnewsky said.
“That’s their only opportunity to get that … because we don’t have a football team. The best part of cheerleading is cheering underneath the lights with the crowd and the team playing. We want them to have that experience, so we’re doing it for soccer.”
Skipping leg day isn’t an option for these teenagers in order to stunt safely
“A stunt is anything that involves lifting someone and tossing someone,” Kuhn said.
“They have to get strong.” Wishnewsky said. “We’ve had them in the weight room to get stronger so that they can lift each other. Jumping skills, we’ve been working on flexibility for that, you’ve got to be pretty flexible to get those jumps down. Some of them have also been taking tumbling classes to help them perfect their cartwheels. The whole thing is cardio. Every time you’re doing a cheer, you’re shouting at the top of your lungs, and some of the dances have a fast pace. So lots of cardio is involved in that, so they run on the track.”
Wishnewsky felt that the training has been a success, and the team plans to debut its first stunt on Tuesday, Sept. 19, during the boys’ soccer game. “It will just be a basic lift and toss but we’ll build from there.”
“They do have to be mentally strong as well,” Wishnewsky added. “Specifically, the flyers who go up in the stunts, they have to trust the people who are lifting them. That can be difficult. They’re afraid that they’re going to fall. They have to mentally prepare themselves and say, ‘I’m not going to fall, I trust my stunt group’ … And mentally remembering everything, we’ve got 50 cheers and chants, several dances. They’ve all been learned since July. So it takes a lot of mental preparation.”
The crowd interactions are freshman Kaelin Arizmendi’s favorite part.
“With that, people get to see how fun it is to be a cheerleader, and maybe get them interested into being a cheerleader in our team,” Arizmendi said. “I saw how on social media they were doing cheerleading, so that got me interested. We had cheerleading squads the year prior; they were not as hyped and spirited as our cheer squad. It’s a lot of fun to do with my friends as well and to be on the track and to cheer and engage with the crowd, because I like talking to people and getting people to dance.”
Returning sophomore Glenna Barnes called this year a big change and alluded to updating the team’s cheers to make performances a more entertaining experience for fans.
“[We were doing] really old cheers and it was boring,” Barnes said. “Nobody heard it because everyone was quiet. But now that we’re doing this, we’re actually practicing. And we’re doing stunts … which is a lot more fun. We had old poms-poms and this year, we actually got new ones. It was kind of embarrassing if you told anyone that you’re a cheerleader, because everyone was like, ‘Oh, you’re weird.’ But now people are cheering for us and we have different moves.”
The program shakeup is what drew freshman Natalie Juan Rodriguez to join the team.
“My goal here is to get somewhere far and be successful, and get to the point where you go to competitions, go to the schools, go against other cheerleading squads,” Rodriguez said.
In many ways this is also a return to form for the team.
“From 2004 – 2011, SRRHS had a co-ed team that competed several times including the state championships,” former SRRHS Cheer Coach Angela Biermann said. “All routines involved stunting, including high level co-ed partner stunts and pyramids. In addition, 5 of the co-ed team members were invited and traveled to London to participate and stunt in their New Year’s Day parade.”
“Building the skills of the girls has been the biggest challenge,” Wishnewsky said. “They were pretty much just cheering and chanting before. Learning to dance and specifically learning to stunt and building the strength to throw another human being into the air. It’s been challenging, but we’ve been building their skills, and they’re getting a lot better.”
2023-24 SRRHS Cheer
Team Roster
Jaden Kuhn
Sheila Montes de Oca
Guadalupe Flores Casas
Mia Lara
Glenna Barnes
Ashley Juarez Sotelo
Sarai Lopez Dominguez
Kaelin Arizmendi
Natalie Juan Rodriguez
Jessica Saucedo Montes de Oca
Head Coach: Sarah Wishnewsky
Assistant Coach: Mariah McElrath
