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The Troup competitive cheerleading team is heading to state on Saturday. The Tigers punched their ticket last weekend with a runner-up finish in the region tournament. The team is a regular at the state tournament which features the top 16 schools in each respective classification, but this year’s team feels a little different. 

The makeup of the team is largely the same with some underclassmen filling the voids left by last year’s seniors, but the message is different. This year the Troup cheerleading team is all about spreading joy in a loving tribute to former Tiger cheerleader Mary Joy Moosman, who tragically passed away earlier this year as she was completing her senior year of high school.

“Our theme is spreading joy for Mary Joy, and it just means a lot more to us this year,” senior Madison Atkinson said, wiping away tears. “Whenever we did it the first time at a competition, I started crying because we’ll never have this again.”

Spreading joy permeates the entire routine when the Tigers hit the mats. 

“Our routine has little things for Mary Joy that nobody knows about, but we know it,” said Kaitlynn Anthony, one of the four seniors on the team. “We know the real purpose of it, and so doing that just motivates us to go out there and hit it 10 times harder.”

“Even the music is dedicated to her, really it’s the whole show,” senior Madison Murphy added.

In the wake of Moosman’s tragic passing, the Troup cheerleading team has formed an even stronger bond. Where there was once a loose collection of individuals is now a family.

“We’re really close knit. We love our coaches, and we’re all just like our family. We always have sleepovers too,” Murphy said as the four senior cheerleaders shared a laugh.

Through the difficult times, and there have been plenty for Troup cheer this year, there has been one constant: coach Amelia Key. She has been the bedrock of the Troup cheerleading team for a number of years now and continues to lead the Tigers through the highs and lows.

“Coach Keys holds us all together, but we have a really big coaching staff, like five coaches that all have their own personalities and we’ve grown so close to them this season,” senior Lauren Shay said. 

It has been another outstanding season for the Tigers, who scored 90+ in six of the seven competitions they have participated in this season, including a first-place finish at Whitewater in which the Tigers beat out cheerleading powerhouse Mary Persons. 

The team is not content with all their performances and were left bitterly disappointed last time out when they finished second in the region. The goal is simple: remedy that on Saturday in Atlanta when the team competes against the other 15 best teams in 3A.

“We are going into it knowing that we could win it all,” Anthony said. “We wanted to win first last week and that is pushing us even harder this week.”

Regardless of what happens on Saturday, the season will be coming to a close. With that comes the bittersweet feeling that this will be a curtain call for the team’s four seniors.

“I honestly don’t think it will hit until Monday when we don’t have to come in for practice,” Atkinson said. “We’re all best friends and doing this whole season together and just growing so close with each other, it’s going to be a lot on Saturday. We’re just all gonna be hugging and crying the whole day.”

In a year in which the team needed some strong leadership, the team got just that in its senior quartet. The four have been cheering together since seventh grade, but have really matured and blossomed as sisters this past year.

“Every single one of us is close to each other,” Atkinson said. “I look in [the cheer room] and I see all the girls and I love them so much.”

Attached at the hip might be underselling the four seniors as they are rarely apart.

The quartet share interests and hobbies beyond the mat, but there is little doubt that they all have a strong love for cheer. While others dream of skipping practice or only showing up to competitions, these four love the every day ins and outs of being a cheerleader, and they’ve only grown to cherish the little moments even more heading into their final week as competitive cheerleaders at Troup High.

“It lets you express yourself because whenever that music starts you get to go full out. I don’t even feel like it’s me,” Anthony said. “I can be sassy and be funny and it’s just a way to express myself and my personality.”

All the stunts, tumbles, flips and twists that the cheerleaders have been doing since they were little girls all lead up to Saturday. For the four seniors, this road is not an intersection but a dead end. There are no do overs, no next seasons, no “we’ll get them next time”, this is it. Saturday is a culmination of not just a season of work but of a lifetime.

“We are feeling a range of emotions heading into it,” Shay said. “We’re really excited, but we’re not excited that it’s almost over. On the bus ride up we will be having fun and listening to music, but once you get there you can breathe, you can be calm, because there’s no going back after what you put on the mat.”