With less than a month to go before regionals, Keys competitive cheer teams are putting on the final touches to their routines. On Dec. 12, the Hurricanes and Conchs met in The Back Yard at Key West High School for a friendly competition to help one another polish their performances. In the sport of competitive cheerleading, teams have 2-1/2 minutes to perform a routine scored on a variety of categories, including technique, difficulty, choreography and showmanship.
Key West has a long tradition of success in the sport, and Marathon fielded a team in 2018, but this year marks Coral Shores’ first season and coach Samantha Rodriguez could not be more excited for the upcoming regional competition.
“Our competition cheer season has been going really well,” Rodriguez said. “The athletes have been working extremely hard every day to clean up routines and make sure everything is looking sharp and consistent. We still have a few head-to-head competitions coming up, which will be great opportunities to see where we stand and continue improving before we head to Stuart for regionals.”
Unlike most sports in Florida, competitive cheerleading teams are not classified by the size of a school. Instead, a team’s classification is determined by the number of athletes on the squad, whether they include gymnastic tumbling and whether the team is all-female or co-ed. Because of this, teams do not have district contests and often do head-to-head competitions at nearby schools where routines are judged and teams can use the critiques to ready themselves for regionals.
Last season, Key West made the cut at regionals and made a state appearance, where they scored well enough to make the finals and finished seventh in the small non-tumbling category. This season, both Key West and Coral Shores will compete at South Fork High School for regionals with hopes for a bid to the state championship event in Lakeland on Jan. 22 and 23.
