By Erin Beck
Lincoln High School’s cheerleading team members are the 2022 Class AA champions.
They took the title on Saturday at Marshall University. Winfield High School cheerleaders were runners-up in the category.
The team hadn’t won a state championship since 2007 but were regional champions last year, according to Coach Mandi Brown.
She compared team members to family members who want to support each other but also help each other improve.
“And I think that’s the foundation of a team is to be that family unit,” she said.
They knew their teammates had their best interest at heart, she said.
Halfway through the season, she noticed team members making comments like “‘I feel like we’re a family,’ and then you start to think about it. It kind of does feel like that. I’ve known most of them a really long time.”
Candis Toothman, her sister, is the assistant coach, and a departing senior, Emalee Brown, is her daughter.
“It really is a family thing,” she said with a laugh.
She’s known most of the team since middle school.
Four are graduating seniors, including Katie Swiger, Keri Yanero, Isaiah Hollaway and Brown.
“We don’t have a whole lot of seniors but the four we’re losing will definitely be missed,” she said.
She also said she’s also expecting a big group of talented eighth graders next year.
Brown started with Pop Warner and always wanted to coach high school cheerleading, “just because I have a love for the sport,” she said.
Her daughter Emalee, one of the departing seniors, started at a very young age as well.
“I think she has 16 years in,” she said. “This is it, this is the last year and she accomplished her goal of getting a state title.”
