State spirit: Valor Christian, Bishop Machebeuf claim Gameday titles

COLORADO SPRINGS – The Valor Christian spirit squad just keeps rolling right along in the Gameday division.

On Thursday at The Broadmoor World Arena, the Eagles won the 4A/5A Gameday championship. It was the third straight Gameday title for the Eagles, who have won every title in the discipline since its addition to the state championships.

“We work hard every practice to get better for this moment,” Valor Christian senior Amber Fricke said. “We focus on doing it for each other and doing it as a team. That’s probably the greatest feeling of all and winning on top of it just shows us that we really accomplished all of our goals together. Especially as a senior, it’s cool to see how our class has been able to lead the team to a state championship. It’s just a different type of accomplishment.”

After qualifying out of preliminaries with the third best score, the Eagles posted an excellent finals score of 98.35 when it mattered most to secure their program’s three-peat. Smoky Hill, which had the highest preliminary score on Thursday and has now finished runner-up for three straight years, finished second with a score of 95.6. Cherry Creek’s 92.95 was third best, Pueblo County placed fourth with a 92.5 and D’Evelyn was fifth at 90.4.

“Coming off a COVID year, that was just so hard,” Valor Christian head coach Kallyn Connor said. “Shoutout to everybody because I know everyone works so hard to get here and it’s always a special experience. This is a big deal for our eight seniors. Our kids work so hard and I’m really proud that they are willing to put in whatever effort it takes at any level and that’s what I’m most proud of.”

In the 2A/3A division, it was Bishop Machebeuf that took home the title after finishing runner-up in each of the past two seasons. It was the Buffaloes’ first spirit title since winning Co-Ed Cheer in 2014.

“This is my third year with the program and the first two years, we got state runner-up,” Buffaloes head coach Mandi Lopez said. “This year, we achieved our goal. We all worked so hard to make it happen. We have ten seniors on our team and they’ve all been here since that first year when I started with this program. This is extremely special to us.”

The Buffs posted a 92.5 in the finals to claim the trophy.

Lutheran was second in 2A/3A Gameday with a score of 95.45 and Swink, last year’s champion, was third with a 90.3. Strasburg, the 2019 champion, was fourth with 89.65 points and The Academy was fifth with a score of 85.4.