DENVER — Dakota Ridge senior co-ed cheer captain Tyler Richey is the embodiment of cheerleading — enthusiastic, positive and full of spirit all mixed into a compact, athletic, bouncy frame.

She wears an enormous smile, almost as big as the bow perched atop her high ponytail, whenever she speaks, but as soon as her team left the floor at the Denver Coliseum on Dec. 5 it seemed as though Richey’s perkiness was merely a façade covering deep-seated worry.

Thirty-eight teams arrived at the coliseum that day vying for the 5A/4A co-ed state title. The two-time reigning champions, the Dakota Ridge Eagles were one of them, but in the end it was Castle View who unseated them.

Richey’s hopes of capping the end of her high school cheer career with a third state title were dashed when the announcer didn’t call their name for finals. But sadly, Dakota Ridge’s shot at the title was in jeopardy well before they even stepped onto the mat.

The Eagles’ season had been riddled with too many problems from the start. Injuries and losing teammates early in the season are things that any team has to deal with, but Dakota Ridge’s struggles began with losing their coach in early November while they were learning their state routine. And the losses just kept coming.

With less than 24 hours before they were scheduled to hit the mat, the Eagles received the devastating news that their only male member, sophomore Jacob Martinez, wouldn’t be competing with them. Dakota Ridge head co-ed cheer coach Amanda Crossley wouldn’t comment on why Martinez wasn’t allowed to compete.

Overwhelmed, the team scrambled to reconfigure their routine with only a few working hours, leaving little time to perfect it enough to wow the judges.

Last-minute changes are tough, but endurable, especially when a team starts working on their routine for state earlier in the year. But since the Eagles didn’t have their state routine until November they weren’t as well-versed and confident as they needed to be to execute the quick changes.

“Last night was super high, intense stress levels,” said Crossley. “The girls still wanted to compete and they were more than willing to step into the positions that needed to be filled.”

A lesser team might have given up, but the Eagles chose to soar.

“It was hard because we were so excited,” Richey explained. “We thought ‘finally, something is going right for us; we have a chance to do great at state,’ but then (we lost Martinez the night before) and it was sad and everyone was crying.”

This would be a defining moment for the Eagles, but most of all for Richey.

“It was hard to step up as a captain,” she said. “But I was like, everything happens for a reason and with or without him we are still going to compete and we are still going to be OK.”

Like all of the other girls on the squad, junior co-captain, BriAnna Martin took Richey’s words of encouragement to heart.

“For me, (competing at state) was about overcoming all of the obstacles we have had this season,” Martin said. “Losing our coach, losing so many people on our team — even one last night — was hard. So it felt good to come out here and show the cheer world that we overcame all of those problems.”