I left Metlakatla High School Tuesday afternoon on a school bus with all the students and athletes attending Regionals. We proceeded to fill up the ferry and arrived to Ketchikan. The chaos began. I was about to let my cheer squad depart to their housing for the night and regroup in the morning, but that quickly changed when I received word from the school that we were scheduled practice time in their auditorium, which began in 15 minutes. The 8 of us were frantically trying to gather rides. Luckily, my assistant coach and good friend saved the day with her little Jetta and hauled all of us up to the school...in 2 trips. It took us awhile to all re-locate, figure out how to get into the auditorium, and find practice clothes for everyone. After that process was completed, practice began. With stress building up and the tension from the chaos, we were all a bit weary and not exactly the most peppy cheer squad, to say the least. As they always do, they were able to separate the tension and pull it together and prepare for the competition that was ahead of us. Nonetheless, no amount of energy bars or caffeine could have truly helped by then end of the tournament. In 4 days, we cheered at 9 basketball games. We had two 8 a.m. games and attended a 7 am cheer clinic. 2 games were back to back and the cheerleaders were to perform their competition routine twice.
Once again, I have done my fair share of cheering at Regional and State Tournaments, but did not have the extra kicker of being judged for an entire game. The judging started during the 20 minutes basketball team warm up, continued through half time, and all the way till that last buzzer ended. Not to mention that by time we were getting judged, we already had cheered at 5 games in 2 days and had to squeeze in stunt practices by stairways and vaulted ceilings in between class times, since their school was still in session. Also, with our sport being as unique as it is, there are regulations on hair length. Therefore, we all made a run to Walmart for hair sponge rollers. Thank goodness we only had 5 girls' hair to do because our hair train system lead to a late, but hilarious night. I, of course, had to join in on the sponge rollers parade, reliving my HS cheerleading days. All in all, the squad once again pulled it off and did a great job with their routine. We competed with 6 other schools. I have provided a link of their routine below. A quick side note... One of the girls on the team hurt her ankle and had to be pulled out of the routine a week before we left for regionals. The whole team stuck with me in changing the routine for about the 6th time. Therefore, what you see is a squad adapting to change like true champions!
Our cheer squad was one of the smallest, but in the end it didn't matter, because they were always confident stepping out on the gym floor, never ceased to yell and cheer their hardest, and in the end had fun while doing what they enjoy.... even got their picture on the front page of the Ketchikan Daily Newspaper!
Oh, and did I mention how they announced me at one of the home games, gave a speech to the whole crowd, and gave me a bouquet of pink roses?... ya they are pretty A-W-E- S-O-M-E!
