Mead cheer team takes home first state trophy, heads to nationals
This time, the Mead High School cheerleaders have scored the goal.
The elite cheer squad captured a first-place trophy in the state cheerleading championships early this month.
Mead also took a second-place award for a different routine at the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association contest. Both wins are a first in school history for its competition cheer program, which began in 2019, said Katherine Melka, Mead cheer coach.
The school’s gold team with 19 cheerleaders won the first-place trophy Feb. 3 in the 1A/2A/3A medium school nontumbling – or traditional – category at the WIAA event in Battle Ground, Washington. Now, the team will take that routine to USA Spirit Nationals in Anaheim, California, on Feb. 24-26.
Mead’s second-place award at state came on Feb. 4 for a routine with all 31 students in its cheer program. The Panthers competed in the 2A/3A game day large category and tied for the No. 2 position with Enumclaw High School.
That game category highlights more of what the cheerleaders do on the sidelines. The group performed using recorded music by the school band, directed by Rob Lewis. It includes a game -situation response based on a quiz and ends with a dance to the school’s fight song.
For the gold team’s routine, cheerleaders do elite stunts, jumps, a crowd involvement cheer, dance and pyramid, Melka said. Amanda Fuentes, a coach with Spokane All Star Cheer, choreographed the gold team’s routine in October to prepare for the state competition.
“We’ve been tweaking, perfecting and upgrading it ever since,” Melka added. “This routine is 2 minutes and 30 seconds of high energy and constant movement.
“In addition to placing first in our category, we had the second-highest score of all the nontumbling routines at state across all divisions with over 35 teams.”
Mead competed against seven teams in the traditional category, mostly West Side schools. The Mead cheerleaders practice two or three times a week, while also cheering at games for football, volleyball, basketball and wrestling.
Other area schools attending the state contest included Ferris, North Central, Cheney, University, Lakeside, Riverside, Chewelah and Newport. Mead didn’t compete directly against those local schools.
“In this last month leading up to state, we’re competing locally throughout December and January, and you have to qualify with a certain score,” Melka said. “During this time, we also sent in a video that had to meet a qualifying score to earn a bid to USA Nationals.”
The second-place win also is significant, Melka said. Her assistant coaches are Matt Melka and Becca Markley.
“We’ve never taken home a trophy at all in our four years of competing, so second place was huge for us as well,” she said. “It’s a great starting point because we do have so many freshmen on that team who are still learning the sport of cheerleading. It was great for them to be part of something really big and be a part of taking home one of our first trophies ever from state.”