Let me preface this with asking everyone to chill on the "teal army rant" to this reply. It's NOT. I just happen to know those kids and that team and can speak to what was asked.
That said,
I don't think anyone would argue that they have the skills to be competitive in small coed. But it's not all about winning worlds and getting bids. The kids on that team have made massive personal improvements since the beginning of the season, they love each other to death and work as a team to get better. Their goal is to learn new skills and beat themselves from competition to competition. That's what that team is about. Learning, experience, gaining skills etc. I was really proud of them yesterday, they just keep getting better and better.
And all four boys crossover, two to Phoenix and two to Coed Elite but again, their purpose isn't to "sandbag" it's to support and teach and learn themselves by getting more floor time. I mean you can't teach a girl to coed stunt without a guy and they can't learn from each other unless their are some strong ones. The guy with the beautiful tumbling on Phoenix too has never cheered before in his life so he does both teams to learn, get reps and floor time for his own personal growth. If they're in restricted he can't get experience building new passes to doubles (he's never tumbled before either, he was a wakeboarder so everything you see from him is a new skill in the last four months really). And if your goal isn't to win, but to learn and gain lv5 experience, does it matter if you're restricted or not? One of the other guys couldn't even toss hands two months ago (also never cheered before) and he's hitting toss Cupie and his confidence has grown incredibly!
That's a great team that is accomplishing more personal/team goals than probably any other team. I just think you have to keep in perspective that their goals are not necessarily the same as everyone else's and quite legitimately "winning isn't everything" in this context.
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