- [Monica] In this scene,
we had just gone on for our final performance
and Austin Bayles had gotten hurt.
- Said the injury is really bad.
- [Monica] They had taken him to the back.
I immediately jumped on the stage to go back there
to see how he was
and our trainer said he absolutely could not go back
into the routine.
His ankle was unstable and he had torn
a bunch of ligaments and broken some bones,
so he was completely out.
You can see the NCA employee telling me
that we can go back to the backstage
and we would have about 30 minutes
to redo the routine, put someone new in.
Now we're headed back to go across the street,
over to where the warmups are.
At this point, I could see the fear in everyone's eyes.
There were people crying.
I think a lot of people felt like we had just lost,
that we were defeated.
So I knew that my job at this moment
was to make sure that they felt confident
and that I believed in them
so I could not let any of my emotions show.
So all that beautiful stuff y'all just put out there,
it's a go.
- It's not gonna happen.
- [Monica] Normally when something big like this happens,
I am strictly in business mode.
So I don't allow my emotions to even come into play
and I immediately go to what is plan B
and that's exactly where my head went.
I already knew from the moment I walked back there
and looked at Austin, that I was gonna put Alex Bouhuys in.
Alex had come in for Austin
about a month before Austin had hurt his back.
So I had put Alex in his pyramid part for two days
so that we could still work the pyramid.
So although he had not done his routine full out,
he had done that pyramid.
We need to get this figured out.
Alex Bouhuys filled in for Austin, when his back was out
so I feel comfortable with him
already gettin' some reps in there.
He knows this basic.
It had been a few weeks,
but I knew that he could do it and I felt confident in him.
So at this point, I'm letting the team know
that they looked amazing
up to the point that Austin got hurt,
that we would not be judged for the part
that the music had stopped.
So everything that we had already done, was already judged.
They didn't have to worry about anything.
You can also hear me talking to them
to let them know that their competition had a mistake.
And I felt like that was important
because I wanted them to not feel like
they were out of the game,
that they still had a chance.
I needed their confidence to be really up.
(upbeat music)
At the beginning I could see on their face
that they were shaken.
What we decided to do, is only have him come in
and do the parts that we still had left,
which the building skills were the basket toss section
and then of course the pyramid.
So we had to show him where to stand
and get the timing when he was gonna come in.
You can see Kapena pushing him in and out,
takin' him to the right formation, so he would know.
And then on top of that,
we had to work through the pyramid multiple times
just to refresh his memory, what the counts were,
go over all that with him.
We actually only got to do the pyramid about four times.
One pyramid fell completely.
It wasn't shown in the show,
but completely fell to the ground.
The other three hit.
We ran through the routine twice,
just so he would know where to come in,
where to step out, where to stand,
because there's a lot of stuff goin' on in the routine.
We did not want him to get hit.
Although he knew the routine from standing on the side,
he had not actually ever been in it to know
that he might be in someone's away.
So all those things were important.
Everyone was focused.
Everyone was on a mission
and I think everyone's confidence was up
by the time we left.
Although, we were in a very tough situation,
these kids are fighters.
We practice every single day
for this kind of thing to happen.
We practice through really hard situations
so that we can fight through anything.
Any unexpected thing, we can fight through it.
You can see them doing the Serenity Prayer.
That is something that we do at the end
of every single practice, every single day.
We also do it before every single full out.
The bond that this team has,
the grit, the determination,
those are all the things that allowed this team
to fight through this injury.
(cheerleaders shouting)