Jan. 15—EPHRATA — The Ephrata Tigers competitive cheer team has qualified for the state competition for the second consecutive season. Head coach Heather Wood was elated to see her team qualify for the second time in the three years they’ve had a competitive team.
“It feels really good, especially because we still have two more comps,” Wood said. “This is the first time that we’ve qualified before the last comp, it feels really good. It was definitely a lot of work over break to improve our score.”
The Tigers competed Jan. 10 in Hanford, scoring a 75.8 for their traditional routine and a 76 for their gameday routine. According to Wood, there was a shared feeling when they came off the mat that they put together a qualifying performance.
“They have to trust each other to do their job. They have to work together to get a score. The feeling was awesome. They knew it coming off the floor, also they hit a qualifying performance. The demeanor was really high, and they worked well together,” Wood said.
The Tigers started competition in October, Wood said. The start of each season presents different challenges since some student-athletes are involved in fall sports like volleyball, so their start to cheer competition can be delayed.
“I never know how many boys I’m going to have. At the beginning of the year, I only had three boys and then, all of a sudden, I got another one the day that competition started, (and) all of a sudden, now I had eight. Ours is a little different because we don’t know who we have when we have it, and we develop our routine then and it’s a lot of trial and error on our end,” she said.
While these scenarios can present uncertainties, Wood is confident in her squad to learn fast and produce a quality performance. She complimented their ability to adapt and willingness to take on changes.
“We’ve had some people working with us, and my kids are really pumped to go to different stunt classes and stunt clinics like (Washington State) and Eastern (Washington) and (University of Idaho), and so they bring back that experience,” she said.
Ephrata has had a cheer team for decades, but only three years ago did they take the leap and start competing, Wood said. In their second season, they qualified for the state competition for the first time. She said the experience sparked a new perspective and tradition for her squad going forward.
“I definitely feel like we’re setting a tradition. Once you make it, the goal is always to be there again, and so watching our performance from state, I think kind of sparked some competitive edge with our team this year,” Wood said.
The Tigers will have two more competitions to attend before heading to State. Since they have qualified, they can use those experiences to continue improving their routines in the shared goal of the best score possible.
Wood said she is eager to have her squad get as much mat experience as possible and preferably in front of a crowd.
“We’re pretty excited that we have two more comps, if we need to try new things to see where we would fit in that. It’s always nice to perform in front of people, especially at this platform, because it’s the best platform to perform at, in any competition, because they all feel the same thing, but we can improve our moves and just keep improving, (and) getting them on the mat,” Wood said.
The state cheer competition will be Jan. 6-7 at Battle Ground High School.
Ephrata Cheer Roster
Annjolenn Ahmann
Hannah Allen
Carson Andrus
Jacob Bartlett
Amalya Bastida
Jaelyn Brown
Payton Canfield
Isabelle DeHerrera
Brody Fleurkens
Bryson Fleurkens
Chastaty Garcia-Zepeda
Alexys Hallatt
Izzlee Haney
Victor Hernandez Gutierrez
Cooper Kriete
Kimberly Ortiz
Michael Park
Charlies Poirrier
Madilynn Pruneda Gonzalez
Yaritza Rodriguez Gomez
Kennedy Schafer
Scarlett Uribe