Submitted Photo The Minot High cheerleading team poses with the championship banners after winning the 2026 Best of the Midwest competition at the Fargodome on Saturday, Jan. 17. The Majettes have won the competition four times in five years. Photo provided by Nathan Rauser

The Minot High cheerleading team doesn’t get many opportunities to showcase its talent and dedication to the art on a competitive level.

Therefore, when the time arrived, the Majettes showed up in a big way.

Minot ventured to Fargo over the weekend to compete in the 2026 Best of the Midwest cheerleading competition and won the event for the fourth time in the meet’s five-year history. The Majettes took first place in all three team routines to claim the title of grand champions, besting the rest of the five-team field at the Fargodome on Saturday, Jan. 17. They also won two small group routines.

“From regionals to this meet, we tend to do a lot of upgrades, so whatever we’re doing at regionals, we want to try and one-up that from that competition to this competition, which we did,” Minot High cheerleading coach Vytalli Klimpel said. “We had a lot more difficult stunts during our elite stunts. We had more difficult tumbling passes at this meet. We just wanted to up what we could get for points and we did.”

The high school cheerleading schedule is a grueling one, beginning in July and stretching through the end of March. The Majettes only take part in three competitions over that stretch, but are constantly in the gym practicing, willing to sacrifice the time it takes to improve upon their skills to get them ready for said competitions.

“People don’t know how much dedication and time goes into it,” Minot High cheerleading junior and captain Lana Berentson said. “We literally start practice in July and end in March. It’s all year. We practice sometimes in the morning before school and as well as after school. Some days we have practices on weekends. Some days we practice for six hours. It’s a lot and a lot of dedication that goes into it that people really don’t notice.”

Berentson has been cheerleading for four years, beginning as an eighth grader at Jim Hill Middle School before joining the high school program as a freshman. This year, she served as the football bunny – or team captain – where her responsibilities included overseeing a group of more than 20 other cheerleaders on the squad as well as coordinating the homecoming parade and the pep rally in the fall.

“I just love being involved,” Berentson said. “I love being part of school spirit, being around people and getting more people involved in the school. I love being out in the community helping out. I just love the aspect of being around and being out.”

The Minot High cheerleading team has four team captains donning the bunny uniform over the course of the fall and winter. Junior Rie Lonning of Minot North serves as the hockey bunny for Minot United and senior Kyleigh Golde and junior Kennedy Visocsky rotate captaincies as the two basketball bunnies.

The Best of the Midwest competition serves as the midway point of Minot High’s competitive schedule. It began with the regional Battle in the Badlands competition on Dec. 6 in Dickinson, where the Majettes settled for a second-place finish behind Minot North. The Sentinels also got the better of Minot High at last year’s Best of the Midwest, ending the Majettes’ run of three consecutive grand champion titles. The runner-up finish at regionals left a sour taste in the Majettes’ mouth, but they spent the next six weeks improving their routines to prepare themselves for the Best of the Midwest.

Prepared they were, as they committed zero fouls and had no point deductions during any of their three team routines. They won all three of those competitions, besting the field in the Time Out routine, the Game Day routine and the Performance routine. The Time Out routine is one minute in length and consists of a cheer with no music, stunts, tumbling or jumps. The Game Day routine is much longer, spanning three minutes and involves a band chant, a situational offensive or defensive chant, a cheer and the team’s school song or fight song. The Performance routine is roughly 2:15-2:30 in length and is done to music and involves stunts, jumps, pyramids, tumbling and dance.

The Time Out routine is scored out of 50 points, while the Game Day routine and Performance routine are scored out of 100 points. The three scores are totaled to determine a grand champion.

The Majettes competed against four other schools in the three team competitions: Minot North, West Fargo Horace, Rugby and Watford City. Minot High won a pair of close competitions in the Time Out and Game Day over the Sentinels before dominating the Performance routine to come away with the grand champion title for the fourth time. The Majettes scored 44.10 points in the Time Out routine, with Minot North coming in just behind them with 43.85 points. It was another thin margin of victory for Minot High in the Game Day routine, scoring 87.55 points compared to 85.75 for Minot North. The Sentinels dropped to third behind Rugby in the Performance routine, as the Majettes posted 78.50 points to finish more than nine points clear of the Panthers.

The Majettes finished with a combined score of 210.15 points. Minot North finished second with 196.95, followed by Rugby (181.85), West Fargo Horace (181.15) and Watford City (166.85).

Klimpel is in her eighth season as head coach and has been a part of all four team victories at the Best of the Midwest. The winning doesn’t stop getting old.

“Each is special,” Klimpel said. “Each is different. This one was really special, especially for the girls because they worked so hard through all of the changes we made from our regional competition we had last month. We’re really proud of them.”

The team competition is just part of the day’s events, as there are also individual routines and small group routines, consisting of two or three cheerleaders performing together. The Majettes were well-represented at the competition, sending 27 athletes to compete across 20 routines, the most they’ve ever taken part in at the Best of the Midwest. They competed across all nine divisions, going up against programs locally as well as from Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. They competed against both high schools and all-star programs like North Dakota Elite, Main Street Athletics, Unlimited Athletics and Rebel Athletics.

The Majettes found the same level of success in the individual and small group routines as they did in the team competition. They won two small group routines and also had two second-place finishes and one third-place finish. The Minot Gold group won the Stunt Off event and MaeLiani Blanco and Averi Erck teamed up to capture the Dynamic Duo title. Lexi Duongg, Kennedy Visocsky and Erck took second in the Triple Threat. Minot High finished 1-2-3 in the Dynamic Duo. Berentson and Jackie Stevens placed second and Bailey Rauser and Golde placed third.

Blanco and Erck added to their accomplishments in the solo routines as well. Blanco captured second place in both the Solo Star and Tumble Solo competitions and Erck was right behind her in third in both events. Stevens finished second in the Jump Solo and Temi Omole was third. The Solo Star competition is a 1-minute routine consisting of music with dance, tumbling and jumps. The Tumble Solo features just tumbling, while the Jump Solo is nothing but jumps.

Blanco and Erck were two of the standouts over the weekend in Klimpel’s eyes.

“Both of them hit new skills they’ve never done before at this competition,” Klimpel said. “We worked on them the day before and they ended up throwing them at the competition. They both did great.”

Minot High’s performance in Fargo provided a confidence boost to the team as it shifts its focus to the NDCCA State Competition on Jan. 31 at the Bismarck Event Center.

“It really makes our team a whole lot more confident,” Berentson said. “When we go out there now that we’ve been winning, it pushes us to become better. It helps us in general when we come out on top because it really helps us going into further competitions. We want to stay there and makes us try harder.”

The Majettes are aiming to add to their rich history of success at the state competition. The state competition consists of three routines: Cheer/Dance, Game Day and Time Out. The Game Day and Time Out routines are the same at state as they are at the Best of the Midwest. The Cheer/Dance routine is a 2:30 routine. The competition consists of 90 seconds of stunting, jumps, tumbling, pyramids and dance along with up to 60 seconds of cheer, which can include motions, prop work, jumps, stunting and tumbling.

Minot High is decorated in all three routines. The Majettes are a 20-time champion in the Cheer/Dance competition, an 11-time champion in the Time Out competition and a nine-time champion in the Game Day routine.

“Going into state now they are hungrier than ever,” Klimpel said. “We’re taking what we did at Best of the Midwest and we’re going to add to it and upgrade and hopefully we’re going to take state as well.”