High school drill: The magic of Rihanna’s Super Bowl halftime show propels Ridgeline to 4A state title, first in school history

Ridgeline swept all three categories en route to title

Published: Jan 30, 2026, 3:29 p.m. MST

Drill teams from 2A, 3A and 4A compete in the state semifinals at the UCCU Center at Utah Valley University in Orem on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

James has been covering high school sports in Utah for the Deseret News for three decades.

There’s nothing like a runner-up finish to light a fuse under a team. That’s exactly what happened with Ridgeline’s drill team this season.

That second-place finish a year ago motivated the Riverhawks to push through early-season injury adversity, something it overcame to win the 4A state championship on Friday.

Ridgeline swept all three categories (military, dance, show) at UVU to run away from the 4A field to capture its first state championship in school history.

“They’ve had a really hard season with a lot of injuries. And they had those injuries at the very beginning of our season—like right as competition started. And every time, they just pushed through and had so much resilience. So for them to be able to get here and get this just means so much because they worked so hard and put in so much effort," said Ridgeline coach Karlee Tansock.

Ridgeline celebrates winning the 4A state championship in the state finals at the UCCU Center at Utah Valley University in Orem on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026.

Snow Canyon finished 4A runner-up, followed by Crimson Cliffs in third.

Hillcrest was the two-time 4A state champions, but it was bumped up to 5A in the latest UHSAA realignment which opened the door for a new state champion.

Regardless of where Hillcrest was competing this year, Ridgeline was motivated to push through for that elusive first-place trophy.

“Yeah, this group has been motivated to win for a really long time. They’ve been very determined to try to get that state championship. So the second just felt like it was so close and so doable,” said Tansock.

The clincher was Ridgeline’s show routine — a Super Bowl 57 routine of Rihanna’s halftime performance. Tansock that they changed the costume three times this season for that routine, adjusting to the feedback received.

At one point, they had big white puffer coats with hoods, but Tansock said, “people said it was too distracting.”

They eventually ditched the hoods and cut off the sleeves to create that perfect, championship look.

“They let us be more thematic this year and less of a character. And we were talking ideas and it just came to me and I just was really sold on it,” said Tansock on picking Rihanna’s halftime performance for Ridgeline’s show routine. “And I just was like, ‘this theme is the one that we need to do.’”