Organ Mountain wins national cheer titles

The Organ Mountain High School Co-Ed Cheer team is the nation’s best, having won the USA Spirit Nationals earlier this month.

The journey wasn’t an easy one.

A Las Cruces-based cheer team had not competed in the national tournament since 2008. This year, all the district teams got approval to go to Nationals if they qualified, said Organ Mountain Cheer coach Jordan Sanchez

“Because of how expensive these trips were, Organ Mountain was the only one who took the risk of taking that path on and dealing with the expenses and doing all the fundraisers, and putting ourselves through all of this,” she said.

The Organ Mountain cheer team, winners of the 2024 5A state title, was confident in its ability, but team members knew they would have to up their game for Nationals in Anaheim, California from Feb. 13-17.

The team said every grueling moment of practice and the dozens of hours of preparation was worth every second.

“I don’t think a lot of us expected to go out there and come out on top,” said senior Wendy Cervantes, a senior side base on the team. “As a whole team, we are very proud of ourselves.”

The Organ Mountain routine had the makings of a nationals-winning team, including a kick full basket that launched a cheerleader nearly to the roof and plenty of round-off back-handspring back-layouts.

The team took home national titles in the Show Cheer Advanced Large Co-Ed category and another in the Crowd Leading Advanced Large Co-Ed division, scoring a 98.4 out of 100 to round out what the team considered the perfect competition weekend.

The Organ Mountain cheer team is planning to clean up its routine and add even more elements in time for the New Mexico’s State Spirit Championships, held in the Pit in March.

“To go out there and win and show our district and show our state who we are as a team is actually really cool, and it kind of like puts a spotlight on us now that we’re not here to play around”, said Cody Burke, a senior backspot.

“We’re not the underdogs, we’re the top team in the state,” Burke added.