The Wrangell cheerleading squad was well prepared for the competition and executed all the moves they had practiced. “It was phenomenal,” coach Tyla Nelson said of the squad’s performance at the Southeast championships.

The judges, from where they sat, saw it differently, and scored Wrangell in third place, behind Haines in first and Petersburg in second at the competition in Juneau, which was held in conjunction with the Southeast Division 2A high school basketball championships March 4-7.

Nelson felt Wrangell was better than Petersburg, but she accepts that’s the way the judging tumbles sometimes.

“We’re done with our season,” she said in an interview on Saturday evening, March 7, as the squad was killing time in the Juneau high school gym, waiting to board the 4 a.m. Sunday southbound ferry that would bring them back home.

With several cheerleading and basketball teams on the ferry, Nelson was hopeful her squad would be able to find enough space “to lay down and get some rest.”

After a Sunday evening at home, the cheerleaders were due back in class on Monday — a requirement to keep up their eligibility.

The coach is hopeful for next year, knowing that Wrangell will lose just two seniors from its nine-person squad (eight girls and one boy), while Southeast champs Haines will lose five seniors.

Nelson already is planning cheerleading camps for this summer: One in stunting (tossing and twisting team members in the air); and a second in cheers and choreography.

“They’re real athletes,” she said of the Wrangell squad, which she said excels at dance and energy. During the season, the team would often practice twice a day, with Saturday sessions, too.

They also practiced tumbling with instructor Tory Houser to add more difficult skills to their performances.

Squad members this year were co-captains Paige Hoyt and Charlie Nelson, Kalee Herman, Ellee Volz, Ian Nelson, Kailyn McCutcheon, Bella Ritchie, Breann Boon and Sophia Martinsen.

Herman, Hoyt and Martinsen were named to the Division 2A All-Tournament cheer team.

Martinsen was among the seven cheerleading squad members from Division 2A schools to win the tournament’s Good Sports Award.

Wrangell pep band members Arabella Nore and Everett Edens also won the Good Sports Award.

Hoyt and Herman were awarded All-Academic honors.

While in Juneau, the Wrangell squad cheered at all six games played by the boys and girls basketball teams. They were judged on their performance at the Thursday morning boys game against Petersburg.

The judges looked at their dance routine, sideline cheers, halftime performance, and first- and third-quarter breaks, Nelson explained.

The judges were a mother-and-son team of experienced cheerleading coaches from Washington state. The scores are not revealed.