Chasing States: Windermere Prep's cheer team is Game Day ready

A new opportunity emerged in the cheerleading world for the 2024-25 season: the FHSAA Game Day Division.

In this new competition, each team had to recreate the energy and excitement of real football sideline situations — either defense or offense. 

Windermere Prep’s competitive cheer team decided to enter into uncharted territory. And not only did it compete, at the state competition in January, the Lakers finished as the runners-up. 

Now, with another year of experience and training, the Lakers have their sights set on returning to states.

But this time, they want to win it all. 

REP THE PREP

Audrey Petterson started her tenure as Windermere Prep’s cheerleading head coach in 2020. She cheered all throughout high school and won the Tennessee state championship but fell away from the sport when she began college at the University of Central Florida. She had dreams of becoming the general manager of SeaWorld, but life had other plans. 

Petterson’s friend at UCF reintroduced her to cheer, and in 2004, Petterson began working with the Orlando All Stars, now Top Gun All Stars. Currently, she serves as the program’s junior executive director.

At the time, Windermere Prep didn’t have a head cheer coach, and Petterson had coached eight of the 12 girls when they were younger, so she promised to help them out. In her first season as a Laker in 2020, the competitive cheer team made it to the state final in the traditional route division. But that class was loaded with seniors who graduated, and the program had to be rebuilt.

The Lakers tried to compete in the traditional division for the next few years without success. But when the Game Day division was created, Petterson’s ears perked up. 

It was uncharted territory not only for the girls but also Petterson. She dived into researching everything she could — judges’ training videos, college routines and even band chants during football games. 

“It definitely put me outside of my comfort zone,” she said. “It challenged me a lot, but I enjoyed it, because it’s like, ‘Hey, I’m learning something new now.’”

While traditional competitive cheer focuses on synchronized tumbling, stunts and pyramids, Game Day emphasizes leadership, crowd engagement, sideline tradition and school spirit. It’s highly demanding of energy and creates a presence on stage. 

Petterson was unsure how the uncharted territory would look. She didn’t know if a lot of teams would choose to transition or if there would hardly be any competition. Once competition began, the Lakers saw their pathway open.

The cheerleaders had their skills and strength down to a tee, but for Game Day, they had to practice their smiles and engagement with the crowd. Certain girls were selected to hold up Windermere Prep’s signs, which say, “W,” “P,” and “Rep the prep,” their jobs became more complex than the girls initially thought. 

“I need you to put the sign out and when you do it, I need it to make a sound, and they’re like, ‘I have to practice this,’” Petterson said of the training process. 

There was some frustration when girls realized they excelled at everything else but were struggling with tackling the nuances of Game Day. The new form of competition led all the girls to participate in sideline cheer during the fall season. 

YEAR-ROUND SPORT

Although competitive cheer is technically a winter sport, the athletes’ commitments run from the beginning of school through March. The girls support all fall and winter sports through sideline cheer. 

Sideline practices focus on precision, the arm angles, kicks, height and vocals. Petterson constantly is making adjustments the week of games. She needs to know how many girls will be there and if they need to change positions. Leading up to each game, she checks in with the team to see which cheers need to be refreshed and go over WP’s opponent so the girls are fully prepared. 

The competitive season is entirely different. 

The Lakers have a structured warm-up to prepare them for running the route. They take out all of the props, set everything into place, run the routine, feedback and critique. Petterson looks for all the fine details. 

In past years, not all of the competitive cheerleaders participated in sideline cheer. But this season, they’ve all taken on both forms of the sport all in preparation for Game Day. Petterson said some find sideline cheer to be more nerve-wracking than stepping onto a mat for competition. 

“You’re looking directly at somebody while you’re cheering,” she said. “Some of the kids will tell you that’s really stressful, but then at the same time, there’s the 5-year-old little girl trying to match your motions.” 

Each motion is made with precision and intention. The cheerleaders adapt to the crowd’s energy. If they can tell fans to enjoy and engage in a cheer more, they’ll do it; if the energy is low, they’ll bring in a performance to light it back up.

The key is practice to perfection. 

“The thing that still makes me the most proud is when you see it click,” Petterson said, who is in her 21st year of coaching.

Cheer is all about precision and the technicalities. For competition they try to hit zero, which means no visible errors. In Game Day, the team is judged off the band chant, cheer section and celebration. 

“When you see them hit a zero routine, you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, it was so pretty; it’s perfect,” Petterson said. “They did such a good job And the amount of excitement and pride around that — I think that’s definitely a big thing, too.” 

Windermere Prep’s varsity cheer team was full of middle-schoolers in her first few seasons at the school. Petterson said it wouldn’t have survived without them. Those girls stuck with it and now are in high school, and Windermere Prep was able to build an entire middle school team now. 

“The growth of cheerleading in this school is really cool,” Petterson said. 

MARCH TO STATES

With a fresh year and high hopes for what is to come, the Lakers’ cheer team is ready to take the stage in this new season. 

Petterson said the team has looked over what successful teams in their division did differently. The team revisited feedback from last season to set itself up for growth. 

“We’ve only had one competition so far this season, but we got a higher score at that competition than we did at the state championship,” Petterson said. 

What’ll add fuel to the Lakers’ march back to states is the leaders on the team who understand what it takes. There’s a few new cheerleaders on the team, but Petterson said the experienced girls are very serious about raising their voices, becoming louder and showing more spirit. They’ve even taken on the role of suggesting different movements the team can do. 

“It’s definitely a team effort from all of them and just trying to make it all happen,” Petterson said. 

The cheer team still has a long road ahead to make it back to the states stage in January. Windermere Prep is participating in four more competitions before regionals.