The Johnston cheerleading team has been rebuilding its program this school year and recently took its competition squad to the state championships, where it took fifth place in its division.

The team cheers on the sideline for football in the fall and basketball in the winter, but only a select few athletes cheer for the competition squad. The Panthers took 10 cheerleaders to states with them to the Ryan Center at the University of Rhode Island.

This year’s team was led by seniors Addison Neil and Gianna Usenia, who were key members of the squad which included a large core of underclassmen.

The team also welcomed in a new coach in former Panther Fallon Davis, who returned home to coach her alma mater.

Davis was proud of her team’s commitment to the sport, especially the two senior captains.

“Those two girls, I swear, they kept me up every night talking about cheerleading. They’d message me every day with new ideas, things they wanted to try to change, trying to make everyone else better. As a first-year coach they helped me a lot,” said Davis. “It’s definitely hard having a new coach come in. For the competitive season, the 10 girls that stuck with it until the end, you can see that those are the girls where it’s more than just sideline cheerleading, it’s something that they work on every day.”

Davis hopes that the team’s experience at the state championships will help the returning athletes to grow moving forward, especially on the big stage.

“They’ve learned a lot throughout the season and I’ve learned a lot from them. They saw how much work has to go into it. I tell them though, that sportsmanship (is important). No matter what happens, you need to compliment the girls that end up winning. They need to realize, ‘this is what we need to do next year,’” said Davis.

Davis also hopes the girls pay attention to the lessons learned outside of the competition as well. 

“There’s so much more that I wanted them to get out of it. Even if we weren’t the best every time, I just wanted to teach them to overcome things, to be able to adapt to different situations, work as a team and see a positive outlook in everything. There’s so many other lessons that come into play than the sport itself.”

Davis also learned plenty of lessons in her first year as coach, and credited town legend and former cheer coach Sue Parillo for guiding her throughout the way.

“It’s stressful, much different from when I was on the flip side of things,” said Davis. “Sue taught me do much. Throughout the year I thought, ‘What would Sue do?’ I learned how to stay calm. I learned how to be hard on them, but how to also be there for them as a mentor because that’s what they need.”