FREEDOM (NBC 26) — The Freedom High School cheer team won the 2024 state title for the first time in the school's history. Now, they will travel across the country to represent Wisconsin at nationals.
“We’ve always been saying, we’re gonna win state when we get into high school,” Ella Petri, an FHS cheerleader, says.
The girls on the FHS Varsity Cheer Squad say they’re more than just teammates.
“We’re all sisters,” Eve Schuh, an FHS cheerleader, says. “Especially being with each other for so long, it feels like a family.”
Most of them have been on the team since elementary school.
“We all have a spot on the mat; we couldn’t do it without everyone that we have,” Ellen Hermes, another FHS cheerleader, says.
Their head coach, Ellen Wilson, has also been with them since elementary school.
Watch: 'Bigger than cheer': Freedom Cheer travels to Dallas for national competition
“I’ve literally watched them grow up,” Wilson says.
Wilson hopes to push her team to be great athletes.
“This is not for the faint of heart, this is not for the weary,” she says.
She also hopes to help them become great people.
“We always say cheer is bigger than cheer, so we try to incorporate life lessons since they’ve been itty-bitty,” Wilson says.
Through her leadership and the girls’ hard work, they took home the state cheer title for the first time in FHS history.
They won despite being the smallest school competing and consisting of only freshmen and sophomores.
"To hear our name be called was— I don’t have words," Wilson says. "It was indescribable to be there."
At the end of January, they will travel to Dallas for nationals.
“It’s going to be in front of more people than we’ve ever competed in front of before,” Becca Wait, an FHS cheerleader, says.
Overall, the girls say they’re both excited and nervous for the new challenge.
However they come home, Wilson hopes the girls will remember the experience for the rest of their lives.
“I want them to be able to leave with their heads held high and be proud and confident in all of their abilities and just know that they’re some of the strongest, smartest, bravest people that I know,” she says.
