{"id":108171,"date":"2026-01-06T22:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T22:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/108171\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T22:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T22:14:09","slug":"georgia-cheer-squad-to-compete-in-nationals-in-orlando-for-first-time-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/108171\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgia cheer squad to compete in Nationals in Orlando for first time ever"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) \u2014 For the first time ever, a Georgia high school cheer team is heading to the national championship in Orlando. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Collins Hill Cheer squad won the 6-A state championship on Dec. 4, which would have ended their season, according to the Georgia High School Association bylaws which prohibits out of state travel. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">But the squad fought to compete and won.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe\u2019ve put in so many hours so much hard work,\u201d senior Aarelyn Starr said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Starr has been a cheerleader at Collins Hill High School in Suwanee for four years and said winning the 6-A state championship last month was the best feeling. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI don\u2019t think words can describe that feeling. I would pay anything to go back to that exact moment hearing our name be called,\u201d said Starr.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"collins hill state champs\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/YAYR5VRIKJEJVHE5DWI7BHBN34.jpeg\" width=\"980\" height=\"733\" \/>collins hill state champs(TRACEY AMICK PEER)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">It was a first for the squad and while they were excited, Starr and all the other cheerleaders were disappointed it would have ended their season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI put in four years into this program, into this team and to be told, \u2018No you just can\u2019t.\u2019 It\u2019s just not fair,\u201d said Starr.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">So the squad, coaches, parents and administrators started writing letters, and emails and making phone calls to the GHSA. And right before Christmas, they got the good news.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe\u2019re going to nationals. It was a great feeling. It was so crazy,\u201d said Starr.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Head cheer coach Katie Birkhead said their ultimate goal is to change the GHSA bylaws.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cTo make sure every high school athlete in the cheerleading sport has the opportunity to go going forward,\u201d said Birkhead. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">But their main goal right now is to bring home a trophy for Collins Hill and the state of Georgia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cNationals, that\u2019s all we can look at. We are the first team to ever be able to go from Georgia, so we have to be able to go and represent. We\u2019ve gotta bring something back and put Georgia on that map,\u201d said Starr.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Since this happened so quickly, the squad is now trying to raise $40,000 to get them to Orlando, so they\u2019re selling shirts and hosting a cheer camp and accepting donations. For more information, click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.successfund.com\/hillyeah\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.successfund.com\/hillyeah\">here.<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Currently, the squad has reached 59% of its goal. <\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WANF. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) \u2014 For the first time ever, a Georgia high school cheer team is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[51185,51183,55390,55391,55383,55385,55384,55387,55386,9388,55388,55389,139,141,140,51184],"class_list":["post-108171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-anf","tag-atlanta-news-first","tag-cheerleading-bylaws-ghsa","tag-cheerleading-ghsa","tag-collins-high-school","tag-collins-high-school-cheerleading","tag-collins-high-school-suwanee","tag-collins-hill-cheerleading","tag-georgia-high-school-association","tag-ghsa","tag-ghsa-cheerleading","tag-ghsa-cheerleading-bylaws","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-wanf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}