Brave Nebraska Cheerleader Competes Solo When Team Drops Out

One week before the Nebraska State Cheer and Dance Championships, three cheerleaders quiet the Morrill High School cheerleading squad for personal reasons.

That left just one person on the squad.

Katrina Kohel, a senior.

These girls are from a small town school. The squad was not big to begin with.

But now, just one girl?

Grand Island, Nebraska. Katrina and her coach went to watch the three-day high-school dance-and-cheer competition, together.

But that did not sit well with Katrina.

This was her senior year. She didn't want to go out like this.

"I kind of 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."
"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." (Insider).

Be careful watching this video. You'll tear up as the other cheerleaders join in to support her.

At the beginning of the video, you'll see a gentleman asking people to sit down. But nobody was having that.

Exactly 1:00 into the video she officially begins her routine. You'll hear the competing cheerleaders in the stands join her in support.

She said that once she got backstage, she "just took a deep breath and calmed down."

What she remembers most from the performance, though, is the outpouring of support from the other teams — Kohel recalled that they "almost all stopped to tell me 'good job' or they're proud of me or give me hug."

"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." (Insider).

Ott said the experience "gave me goosebumps."