The Juneau Huskies and Juneau Youth Football League competition cheerleading teams showed the rest of Alaska just what makes the capital city tick…athleticism, enthusiasm and spirit as they wowed the judges at last Saturday’s 2024 Rally in the Valley Cheer Competition at Palmer’s Colony High School.
“I’m so proud of this team and how far we have come,” Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé senior Samantha Day said. “We accomplished so much this year. I’m also very proud of our middle school team. I had the amazing opportunity to get to work with them on all their routines and hearing them win made me tear up. I was so proud of them and all their hard work.”
The annual competition is a chance for high school football cheerleading teams to compete with one another at the end of the season. Teams from Anchorage and the Matanuska Susitna Valley attended.
The Juneau Huskies placed first in their Game Day Division performance and lost to Colony by one point in the Half Time Division performance, placing second.
They also earned second place in the Stunt Group Division.
Thunder Mountain Middle School eighth grader McKinley Burgess Fitzpatrick poses for a photo last weekend at Palmer’s Colony High School after winning the championship in the 2024 Rally in the Valley Cheer Competition’s Middle School Varsity Solo division. (Photo courtesy Tiffany Mahle)
JDHS senior Gracie Kohuth placed fourth in the soloist competition and senior Elijah Levy fifth.
“I was so proud of our team and the skills we accomplished this season,” Kohuth said. “It was hard to know that this was my last Rally in the Valley comp, but I couldn’t have asked for a better way to end my season. I was super excited to do a solo this year and when they announced my name for fourth place, I was so shocked. I’m so proud of Elijah for placing right next to me in our solo division, too.”
The Huskies competition team included JDHS seniors Day, Kohuth, Levy, Tenlee Roemer, Savannah Cornett Markey, Marzena Whitmore, Ayla Keller and Kajson Cunningham, juniors Faith Montez and Avery Cornett Markey, sophomore Rylie Mulkey, and freshmen Rory Love and Viviana Flores.
“From being a manager of the team to competing with them has been the best experience,” Whitmore said. “For it being my first time as a cheerleader the team made sure to help me whenever I needed it. Even though we wished for a better outcome we still got to take home some metal. I am so thankful for this team and how much we all love one another.”
Huskies head cheer coach Stephany Day noted that Whitmore began this season as the team’s manager.
“But then she decided to join us on the mats for competition,” the coach said. “We are so incredibly proud of her and all the hard work she put into mastering the routines. She was an incredible manager for our team but we are even more thankful for her in suiting up and joining our routines. As a first-time cheerleader, Marzena nailed it.”
The Juneau Youth Football League competition cheer team pose for a photo at last weekend’s Rally in the Valley Cheer Competition at Palmer’s Colony High School. Back row left to right: Kendall Mulkey, Hajla Ridle, Thea Gordon, Maddie Ingraham, Bailey Friedrichs, Lucy Burke, Kristine Ryan, Courtney Parkin and Roxy Vetrano. Front l-r: Dakota Barger, Tayzia Galletes-Stafford and coach Tiffany Mahle. Not pictured is McKinley Burgess Fitzpatrick. (Photo courtesy Tiffany Mahle).
Huskies assistant coaches are Vanessa Aube, Katelyn Kohuth and Robert Day.
“As a former Huskies cheerleader, it was a strange but awesome experience to watch the competition for the first time instead of actually being in it and competing,” Katelyn Kohuth said. “I’m so proud of our cheer team and the show that they put on for everyone. It was such a fun experience to choreograph a couple of the routines performed and see them come to life, and made me feel like a piece of me was still competing on the floor.”
Added head coach S. Day, “This year was also a very exciting year for us because we worked with the Juneau Youth Football League and their middle school competition team came with us to compete in the middle school divisions. Our teams worked hard together to prepare for competition. The high schoolers choreographed the middle school routines and worked with them on their skills over the last two months. It was an amazing day over all and Juneau cheer showed up to represent.”
The JYFL competition team placed first in both divisions they entered, Middle School Varsity Game Time and Middle School Varsity Half Time, also competing against schools from the Anchorage and Mat-Su area.
“It meant the world,” Thunder Mountain Middle School eighth grader Thea Gordon said. “I wish I could relive the moment of the judges announcing Juneau for first place.”
TMMS eighth grader McKinley Burgess Fitzpatrick, a first-year cheerleader, earned a first-place and champion trophy in the Middle School Varsity Solo competition.
“It was such a blessing being up there and having my team praying for each other,” Fitzpatrick said. “I could have never don’t this without them especially with this being my first year.”
The Juneau Huskies and JYFL competition cheer teams pose for a photo at last weekend’s Rally in the Valley Cheer Competition at Palmer’s Colony High School. (photo courtesy Samantha Day)
The JYFL competition team included TMHS eighth graders Fitzpatrick, Gordon, Adriana Blanton, Hajla Ridle, Kendall Mulkey, Roxanna Vetrano, Kristine Ryan, Tayzia Galletes-Stafford, Montessori eighth grader Madison Ingraham, Faith Community eighth grader Dakota Barger and TMHS seventh graders Lucy Burke, Bailey Friedrichs and Courtney Parkin.
“I am extremely proud of them,” JYFL cheer head coach Tiffany Mahle said. “They went from barely able to do a prep, which is like a basic move, to doing some more advanced moves and, obviously coming in first, doing them well and clean. And in less than eight weeks. So they have made a lot of growth in the last two months. I am very proud and happy and they are definitely focused now, they are all in and ready to keep going.”
Mahle noted that her assistant coaches “were the Huskies cheer team.”
This is also the last year the team will be called the Huskies. They will become the Crimson Bears next season due to JDHS being unified with the now-defunct Thunder Mountain High School this year.
“I’m proud of our Juneau Huskies Football Cheer team,” assistant Huskies cheer coach Aube said. “Not only did they put in the long hours, blood, sweat and tears to learn and perfect their routines but they also created and choreographed the routines for the JYFL team…Both teams represented Juneau extremely well. What an incredible way to close out Juneau Huskies Football Cheer.”
• Contact Klas Stolpe at klas.stolpe@juneauempire.com.
