The 2015 Sweet Home High School competitive cheerleading team is heavy with returning experience.
Returning seniors include captains Alex Olin and Natalie Thorpe, along with Mikayla Crompton, Samantha McMahand, Ady Perez, Sabria Branton, Caitlyn Spencer, Kenzie Curtis and Sadie Riggs. Also returning are junior Dakota Garcia and sophomores Ilima Ka’auwai-Walker, Ivy Weidner, Shania Baxter and Erin Bauer. They are joined by freshmen Brittney Zook and Ashley Bailey.
The team will include three full stunt groups, said Coach Amber Rosa. “It looks really good. Every year, we’re adding new skills.”
This year, they’re adding the “tic up,” in which cheerleaders swap legs while going up into a stunt. They’re adding “full-up extensions,” where cheerleaders fully extend their arms as they lift another, spinning the team member being lifted 360 degrees on her way up.
“They’re really experienced seniors,” Rosa said. “Skillwise, we are kind of at the peak we’ve ever been at.”
The team is top-notch off the mat too, with no grade issues, Rosa said. All of them are at practice every day, and they’re getting along well. Last year, shifting personnel forced a lot of revisions in choreography.
The Huskies’ theme this year is “The Great Gatsby,” with music based on the film and the book, Rosa said. The routine has a 1920s flair in the choreography.
The team also is emphasizing its tumbling skills this year, Rosa said. Following four months of tumbling instruction as a team with Tiffany Lynn and Jinger Plebuch, “our tumbling skills are the best they’ve been by far.”
The Huskies will face its toughest competition on the state level in Klamath Union High School, Rosa said. Klamath was senior-heavy last year and won the state championship. The Huskies won it two years ago.
With Klamath graduating so many seniors, and the Huskies senior-heavy this year, Rosa thinks the Huskies could take the championship.
“We put our time in this year,” she said. “And we’re hoping. I’m feeling really confident.”
The team is way ahead of where it usually is at this point, and she hopes by the time state rolls around, executing the performance will be simple.
The Huskies travel to Springfield on Saturday. They perform at Jesuit in Portland on Jan. 24 and then at Clackamas on Jan. 31. They will attend the Oregon Elite pre-state on Feb. 7 at the Oregon State Fairgrounds in Salem.
They compete at state on Feb. 14 in the Memorial Coliseum in Portland.