Over a month into the cheer competition season, teams are beginning to see where their strengths and weaknesses lie in their routine. After most teams qualified for the Las Vegas competition in February 2026, teams are looking to find the perfect routine. The same goes for Ripon High as the cheerleaders have continuously worked hard on their routine in preparation for the Las Vegas competition. However, they still look at each competition as a chance to place higher than everyone else. We saw this from the team at the “Friday Night Lights Adrenaline” competition on Dec. 5, 2025. While there were things all Ripon teams needed to clean up on from the competition, ⅔ of the Ripon teams placed first overall in their respective levels.

The competition lasted for several hours, spanning from 5PM to 9:30PM. Ripon High didn’t get a chance to perform until 7PM with the JV team in level 1 non-tumbling. The team placed 5th overall among seven teams participating. The team overall had a good performance, however they will need to improve on how much they stumble during their routine. Meanwhile, the varsity venom non tumbling team and JV level 2 team both placed first for Ripon High School. 

Junior Jamison Rushing, stated on placing first, “I was very pleased because both of my teams got first place, and one of my teams got level champ, and I’m very happy with it.”

Even with the impressive placement though, the team still has things in their routine to fix for the upcoming Las Vegas competition. Most of the errors throughout Ripon’s routines were small errors, but ones that judges marked Ripon down for.

Rushing stated, “We had a few stumbles on all of our teams, but I do think that I’m very proud of us because we did get first place.”

While there are things all three levels need to work on, the RHS cheer teams should be very proud of the performance they had on “Friday Night Lights”. Not only that, but this competition will help Ripon be prepared to be the best school in Las Vegas.