Huskies have strong foundation in place
LEWISTOWN — The Mifflin County cheerleading team has been making the rounds in the local sports scene with their impressive routines and athleticism.
This season the team has shown off their skill and dedication by winning competitions and securing themselves a spot at the state competition. The team is led by head coach Jennifer Johnson and assistant coaches Adrienne Witters and Sidney Barlett. Along with cheering at Mifflin County home sporting events, the cheer team also travels to competitions to compete against other high school cheer teams.
This year the Mifflin County cheerleaders have advanced and taken themselves all the way to the state competition in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Each routine performed is carefully designed and choreographed, then the team spends weeks practicing and perfecting the routine to prepare for the competition. The two minute and thirty second routine can take weeks or even months to create and fine tune before it is competition ready.
“Our routine is prepared in sections,” Huskies head coach Jennifer Johnson explained.
“We have our cheer section, and our music section that involves elite stunts, jumps, tumbling, and pyramid. It takes a lot of time, focus, hard work, and dedication.”
While creating the routines, some days may be discouraging or grueling as they work to perfect the performance and focus on memorizing and making it as clean as it can be. It is important for Johnson to keep the team motivated and focused while perfecting a routine.
“Our team stays motivated by the visual improvement they can see and feel after each practice. Wanting to hit and maintain the harder skill set has really kept them motivated,” Johnson clarified.
Mifflin County is made up of girls from all grades, freshmen through seniors. Leading the pack are seniors Alex Koch, Addison Hook, Cameron Witters, Myah Bunch, Tess King, Piper Snyder, and Savannah Powell. All of the seniors are vital to the team, they are the ones the younger members look up to for advice and guidance.
Junior Kayla McTavish is also an exceptional example to the team.
“She competed at districts not feeling one hundred percent but she continued to push through the grueling two minute and thirty second routine,” Johnson shared.
Sophomores Hannah Johnson, Isabelle Pecht and Aubrey Kennsinger have pushed new limits in stunting and tumbling. The Huskies also have several outstanding freshmen that will keep the program tough for future years, such as Reagan Sheetz with her beautiful tumbling, sets a good pace for future endeavors.
While creating routines and finding strengths within the team, the group faces challenges and setbacks along the way.
“Challenges we face throughout the year are time management, with our own competitive routine and still showing up for our fellow athletes in sports such as football, wrestling and boys and girls basketball,” Johnson detailed.
The cheerleaders are the only sports team that faces two separate responsibilities. Competitions, which require time and focus for all aspects of the routine, and cheering on and supporting the other teams, which also requires focus and precision as well, as they create and memorize sideline cheers to perform.
As Mifflin County moves forward in the season, Johnson reminisced on her favorite memory from the season so far.
“Punching our ticket to the state competition,” Johnson noted.
The Huskies are still working hard in preparation.
“We have been working really hard at practice to hit the highest level of our program guidelines,” Johnson shared.
“The kids are really excited about their skill level and have been improving each practice.”
Mifflin County is still pushing on in hopes of a good outcome at their next competition.
“We still have our state competition that we qualified for by being the highest scoring, large varsity team in our District 6 competition, outscoring Altoona who was also in the large division,” Johnson explained as she touched on what the team is looking forward to in the coming weeks.