Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
The Sweet Home High School cheerleaders won a national championship title at JAMfest Nationals held March 31 and April 1 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
“It was a very fun weekend,” Coach Crystal Kimball said. “The girls did an awesome job.”
The team earned the right to appear in the event by winning the OSAA championship in February. JAMfest is one of several national cheerleading competitions. The event included more than 120 teams overall.
“At first, it wasn’t really what we expected,” Captain Kristi Ward said, but they were soon excited to be performing in Los Angeles. “It was a lot of fun. It was just a good time for all us girls to have fun and be together, go to Disneyland, the beach.”
The girls were approaching it mainly to gain the experience, Ward said. It was something none of them had ever done before.
“We actually went in and didn’t know what to expect,” Captain Schae Pettner said. “We just went in with our heads high and did what we had to do.”
As it turned out, the team was alone in its category of the competition, disappointing to a team that had successfully competed for the top 4A spot in the state of Oregon and a team that was prepared to compete for a national trophy.
The Huskies did score better than teams in larger competition categories. After finding out that the Huskies were alone in their category, Kimball said that she asked to move her team up to a tougher level.
The championship trophy was great, but Kimball was even happier that her team won the Spirit Award, she said. It was among the special awards given at the end of the tournament, and she didn’t understand why her girls won it, thinking they weren’t particularly boisterous.
The Spirit Award went to only one of the 120 teams Pettner said.
Kimball went up to the coaches’ room at the end and asked about the award, she said. She was told it was based on how the team members interact with each other and their coach.
“The girls are very, very close, and they’re close to me too,” she said. When the pressure’s on, they don’t fight among themselves, instead conducting themselves as if they were friends.
“That’s probably the thing I’m actually proud of,” Kimball said. “That speaks right there to why the girls were so successful this year.”
“The Spirit Award was great, just knowing the other people noticed how much we connected as a team,” Ward said.
“We were all really excited,” Pettner said. “I think what we were more excited about was getting the spirit award.”
The Huskies were seen praying together, giving each other encouragement on and off the mat and treating their coach positively, she said. “We weren’t really expecting to get the spirit award.”
“What team from Sweet Home has ever gone to nationals and competed?” Kimball asked.
If someone had told her when she took over the team that the team would attend and win a national competition, “I would’ve said that’s going to take years.”
The team’s routine went well, she said. “The first day, we dropped two stunts,” but the “routine was really good.”
The Huskies lost one-tenth of a point, on a scale of one to 10, for that routine, she said. The next day, their performance was perfect, netting them a 6.819 final score for the event.
The Huskies’ strength is in their synchronization and cleanliness, she said. Judges have told her is that her team is precise, and their performances are clean.
“They’re energetic,” Kimball said. “They’re having a blast, and you can see it.”
Ward and Pettner both wanted to thank the Sweet Home community for its support and helping the Huskies get to nationals. They also thanked their coach for taking them and giving her time to get them there.
The community raised enough money to send this team to JAMfest, Kimball said. “I am just so blown away by the support (for) this team.”
Kimball said she has been impressed by the Sweet Home community since moving here.
She grew up in Albany, but her husband grew up in Sweet Home. He always told her how special the Sweet Home community was. This proved it.
“I love Sweet Home,” she said. “I had no idea.”