2 Teams with Same Dream
KHS, Cashion cheer squads win regional titles, aim for state
KHS CHEER – Members of the Class 4A-A regional championship cheer team are, from left: front row, Raylee Snodgrass, Amy Deatherage, Ashley Casillas, Libbie Barnett, Kylee Rojas, Savannah Rosen, Harley Schlegel, Anna Massey and Jaelin Cortes; and back ro
CASHION CHEER - Members of the squad that won the 2A regional championship last weekend include, from left: front row, Kylie Henson, Kaylee Gilliland, Reese Williams, Lauren Jenkins, Story Phenninger and Mackey Roper; middle row, Sadie Weaver, Chevy Euban
Two Kingfisher County teams will vie for state championships this weekend.
Both feel they’ve got a legitimate shot at bringing home gold.
Kingfisher and Cashion high schools’ cheerleading squads won their respective regional championships last weekend.
The group from KHS won the Class 4A-A regional competition at Broken Arrow High School. Meanwhile, Cashion did the same in Class 2A-B, which was held at Stroud.
The regional championships automatically qualified the teams for this weekend’s state competition at Union High School’s UMAC in Tulsa.
Cashion will be the secondto- last Class 2A team to perform when it does so at 11 a.m.
Kingfisher is in the middle of the Class 4A performances and will begin its routine at 3:55 p.m.
For Cashion, it’s a bit of a family affair that’s been building to this competitive cheer season.
Both coaches - Amber Hobgood and Casi Williams - have daughters on the team.
Hobgood’s daughter, Abby, is junior while Williams’ daughter, Reese, is a senior.
“We are hoping this is the year,” said Hobgood, herself a former KHS cheerleader.
Cashion was fourth at last year’s state competition and tied for second in 2021.
While neighbor Crescent has been the team at the top in recent years, Cashion’s regional score of 257.4 also topped all the scores in the Class 2A-A regional. That group included Crescent, which won that regional with a 251.2.
“The girls will definitely have the targets on their backs now,” Hobgood said.
Okemah was the runner- up in Cashion’s regional with 252.44 points.
Haworth (244.2 points) and Keota (239.0 points) also advanced to that regional.
Moving on with Crescent were runner-up Pocola, Ketchum and Warner.
The first Class 2A state cheer performance is 10 a.m. Cashion will be the seventh of eight teams to perform.
“Our expectations are for them to win state,” said Hobgood of the coaches’ goals going into the weekend. “But we know it will be tough and they have their work cut out for them this week.”
Like Cashion, the Kingfi sher squad has been building to this season.
Nine of the squad members are seniors and have been with Carma Reagan since she began coaching along with Lori Burns four years ago.
“We told them as freshmen if they stick with it and put in the work, they could win a state championship as seniors,” Reagan said.
“Now we are just a few days away from that opportunity.”
Kingfisher is looking for its first state title in cheer since winning three consecutive 3A crowns from 2006-08 when Burns was the head coach.
The good news for Kingfi sher is it won this year’s Class 4A-A regional despite being far from perfect.
There were visible mistakes in the routine as there were falls in two of the four main stunts.
“The crazy thing is, we had a perfect warmup,” Reagan said. “We had no mistakes in the warmup room and we felt really confident heading out to the mat.
“But things happened and we didn’t hit perfectly.”
However, said Reagan, the team gathered itself after the miscues and finished the way it started… “It could have very well gone downhill from where we dropped,” Reagan said. “But they stepped up and finished strong, which really helped our score.”
Judges awarded Kingfi sher 248.4 points, easily beating runner-up Community Christian’s 237.6 and third-place Plainview’s 237.4.
Oklahoma Christian School (236.6 points) also advanced to state.
Kingfisher’s score was the second-highest among all regional competitors.
Washington, which won the 4A-B regional, scored 253.0 points.
Also moving on from that regional were Bristow, Pauls Valley, Pryor, Ada and Hilldale.
The errors at regional, said Reagan, should benefit the team this week.
“It definitely gives us something to work on this week at practice,” she said.
And work is nothing new.
The team has been in the cheer facility nearly every day for almost four months.
“Twenty girls have been putting in the work since the first week of June,” Reagan said. “Several learned new skills over the summer to help elevate our tumbling score. They’ve had very few days off.”
All of that work boils down to an action-packed two-minute routine.
“We have a lot of talent on this squad. Hopefully, all their hard work, blood, sweat and tears will pay off,” Reagan said.
“We want to bring a state championship home to Kingfisher and make our community proud.”