By Joshua Koch
Public Communications
As school after school was listed off in the reading of the Top 10 finishers in the UIL Spirit COED State Championship Finals, Kingwood Park cheer coach Brittni Sharp admits the nerves were palpable.
Once the announcer read that Burleson High School had finished as the UIL Spirit COED State Runner Up, the second-year coach knew one of two results were left for her team.
“It was either we are first or we didn’t even place in the Top 10,” Sharp said in a phone interview on Friday. “So we are hunkered down. We are about to hear we are State Champions or we didn’t even place in the Top 10. It was very stressful and then very exciting.”
It was State Champions.
With a total score of 91.37 points, earning 46.97 points in crowd leading and 44.40 in band chant and fight song, the Kingwood Park High School cheerleading team had claimed the program’s first-ever UIL Spirit State Championship.
“It’s an unreal feeling,” Sharp said. “This competition, it’s the hardest to win. So, when they called us … I’m still in shock. We didn’t have any expectations. We just wanted to be proud of what we put out on the floor. To hear that we got first, it was mind-blowing. It was a feeling of bliss, excitement and pride. I was so proud of this team for working so hard.”
Kingwood Park beat out Burleson by 0.67 points to win the state title.
The UIL Spirit State Championships have been held since 2016. Originally, the UIL started it with eight categories – small coed, large coed and UIL Conference 1A through 6A. In 2018, Coed was turned into one category, while Conference 6A and 5A were split into Division I and Division II. In 2022, Conference 4A and 3A were split into divisions, expanding the UIL Spirit State Competition into 11 divisions. Currently, teams do not have to qualify for the UIL Spirit State Competition. Schools that want to compete sign up and pay the associated fees.
Since 2016, the UIL has crowned 85 Spirit State Champions – Kingwood Park is the first-ever Humble ISD team to win a UIL Spirit State Championship.
“It means so much, especially me being a product of Humble ISD,” Sharp, a 2017 graduate of Atascocita High School said. “I’ve been in these girls' and guys' shoes. I’ve been on the mat, and I know just how mentally and physically exhausting it is. How much dedication you have to have and how you have to push yourself when it’s not easy. This group, no matter how tired they are, they just continue to go above and beyond. They show up to practice and bring a positive attitude.”
Sharp remembers her first trip to the UIL Spirit State Competition. It came as a senior at Atascocita in 2017.
“It was so different then,” Sharp said. “Now it has been around for so long. No one really knew a lot about it. You just created these routines and went and performed it. It’s gotten a lot more strategic and a lot more detailed. Now people, coaches and choreographers have learned the build of the competition, so it’s gotten so much more competitive.”
Sharp arrived at Kingwood Park High School last year after spending two years as the head cheer coach at West Lake Middle School. That was her first job after graduating from the University of Houston, where she cheered for four years.
In 2024, Sharp took her cheer team – which had three cheerleaders who had any kind of competition experience – to the UIL Spirit State Competition. They competed in Class 5A Division I. They didn’t make the finals.
This year, Kingwood Park added boys to the team and entered the UIL Spirit COED division. High schools of any UIL Classification can enter as long as the team has four or more boys actively participating in the stunts. Competing in Coed is different than in the other divisions.
“A traditional routine is where you have all the crazy tumbling and pyramids, in Gameday, it’s sideline at its finest,” Sharp said. “It’s a ton of drilling. The biggest thing they get you on is timing. Your timing has to be perfect.”
Kingwood Park was one of 27 UIL Spirit COED teams across Texas that had to compete in crowd leading, band chant and fight song. The Panthers were one of 13 teams to make the Finals and won the top award for best band chant along with the UIL Spirit Coed State Championship.
“It’s a proud mom feeling, it’s unlike any other,” Sharp said. “Personally, it is more rewarding than even being on the mat.”
Kingwood Park will be competing at the National High School Cheer Competition in Orlando, Florida starting Friday, February 7. To qualify for this, Kingwood Park had to score a 90 or above at a Regional Competition.
Kingwood Park Coed Cheer Roster
Head Coach: Brittni Sharp
Assistant Coach: Natalie Johnson
Hayden Anderson (Senior)
Sebastian Bolivar–Velasquez (Senior)
Kate Damratoski (Sophomore)
Riley Dougherty (Junior)
Maya Fritz (Sophomore)
Brooklyn Gast (Freshman)
Mark Gonzalez (Junior)
Chila Guzman (Junior)
Kinleigh Johns (Freshman)
Catherine Kloessel (Sophomore)
Carson Kae (Junior)
Alec Krippel (Junior)
Annaliese Lowrey (Senior)
Luci Macias (Senior)
Melanee Martin-Benavidez (Senior)
Alexis McGillbery (Junior)
Abigail Miller (Sophomore)
Madeleine Miranda (Senior)
Haylee Palomarez (Senior)
Anthony Prado (Senior)
Sophie Reed (Senior)
Paisley Reeves (Freshman)
Ayden Richardson (Sophomore)
Cooper Robinson (Junior)
Laurel Rummel (Junior)
Abigail Smith (Senior)
Lauren Smith (Freshman)
Madison Staggs (Junior)
Kira Swonke (Sophomore)
Allison Talley (Sophomore)
Hayley Tappan (Senior)
Alaina Villagomez (Senior)
Campbell Zurovec (Freshman)