Both Apollo and Daviess County cheerleading programs joined each other for practice at Cheer Zone on Wednesday night, as they both prepared for the state competition on Dec. 9 and Dec. 10.
The E-gals and Lady Panthers are coming into the state red hot, having both recently qualified for nationals at the UCA Bluegrass Regionals. They will be joined by a number of other local teams as well, as Daviess County Head Coach Kitty Jones wanted to wish all of them luck before competing this weekend.
“All of our local teams had great performances at the UCA Qualifier receiving bids and I want to give a big shout out to them as well,” Jones said. “Good luck to Owensboro HIgh School both at State and moving forward to Nationals along with Burns Middle School. I also want to thank the Apollo HIgh School cheerleading program and their coaches for coming together with us to achieve a common goal. Wishing them the best of luck at state in their division.”
Head Coach Wes Nall was pleased with Apollo’s performance at the Bluegrass competition, but knew that they had plenty of areas that they could improve on.
“Our traditional competition performance included some stunt execution errors that cost us 8 points on our final score,” Nall said. “We still managed a 72…Those scores are outstanding. We managed to hang on to the lead over Owensboro and guarantee our bid by being excellent on those two scoresheets. In our gameday division, we finished in third and again had a stunt execution error. That lone error easily cost us second place. I could make an argument that we would have been in the running for first with perfect execution, but we were up against a very good Daviess County team. It would have been tough.”
Jones felt like the Lady Panthers did a solid job overall as well, but was able to use the national qualifier as a learning experience to help them grow coming into the latter half of the season.
“I felt like our Game Day performance was great, however our score was somewhat lower than our previous competition,” Jones said. “We have tweaked some things and have taken the feedback from our score sheets to hopefully improve our score moving forward. Our traditional 2.5 team had a great first half of their performance receiving a bid and now we have a good grasp on what we need to work on going into Nationals.”
Competing in the competition in mid-November also allowed Nall and Jones to gauge where their teams were as they turned their focus to nationals, noting that they were up against some stiff competition.
“Kentucky is a leading state at nationals, and Bluegrass is one of the biggest qualifiers every year,” Nall said. “In some of these divisions, small varsity D2 for example, you can figure the top-10 at Nationals will include 5-8 teams from Kentucky on any given year.”
It’s no surprise though that either program qualified for nationals, as Daviess County and Apollo cheerleading teams have had plenty of success in the past. The E-gals have qualified for nationals in seven straight years, not counting the 2020-21 season that COVID-19 interfered with.
“We’ve gone after two bids most of those years, and three in 2019-2020,” Nall said. “Total, including this weekend, is 15 out of 15 in bid attempts. I don’t want to say it’s the ‘standard,’ but I have confidence in the way we approach these qualifiers.”
On the other hand the Lady Panthers success dates back to the late 1980s and early 90s, as Jones credits past Daviess County teams and current assistant coach Sally Ward for setting the precedent for the program’s success.
“It was definitely a relief qualifying in our traditional 2.5 division since the end of our routine that day was not great,” Jones said. “However, qualifying for Nationals is a standard for Daviess County cheer which was set years ago when one of our current coaches, Sally Ward, took the team as head coach to Nationals in 1994 leading to success in placing ninth in 1999. Sally also participated as a member on the team in 1989 placing 11th. There were also several years of success at the National level under the leadership of Tammy Morgan.”
At the national qualifier Jones felt like the Lady Panthers executed their spirit and sharpness well, but had a few timing issues that did not flow well in some areas. To prepare for leading into state Jones and her staff looked at every movement of their Game Day routine to make transitions cleaner, motions tighter, and energy higher.
Nall said that the E-gals have been working on improving their stunt execution to be competitive at nationals, as that has been a major focus in practice leading up to state and will continue to be a point of emphasis as they prepare for nationals in the month of January.
With two programs that are heavily competitive and always looking to improve with goals of bringing some hardware home, Jones reached out about the idea to practice early in the 2022 postseason. Both programs have not always gotten along, but the practice was a way to bridge the gap between the two while pushing them to want more out of themselves late in the year.
“I reached out to Coach Nall before KHSAA Regionals and asked him if they would like to practice together, he was in immediately,” Jones said. “Although we are hometown rivals, coming together to practice has built great rapport between the once divided programs. It has pushed the athletes out of their comfort zone, and taught them how to have good sportsmanship even when competing against each other in the UCA Qualifier. We cheered each other on, along with parents from each program, and shared feedback amongst each other.”
Nall noted that being able to practice together was a great motivator for the two teams, noting that cheerleading doesn’t have nearly as many competitions whereas your main sports teams would play at game speed two to three times a week. And while both programs have buried the hatchet in terms of their divisiveness in the past, the competitive hunger to be the best hasn’t changed between Daviess County and Apollo.
“Our teams are competitive, both in general and with each other,” Nall said. “I’ve known their coach for a long time. Kitty was one of the first people I met when I moved to Owensboro in 2004. Putting them side by side in practice, gives them that little atmosphere of competition that cheerleaders don’t get… Cheerleading competitions are weeks or sometimes months apart. It’s very easy to become stagnant. These are practices and the environment is mostly positive and encouraging, but don’t think for a minute that anyone is mailing it in with the rival school in the building.”
While finishing atop the competition in nationals is a high priority for both programs, they’ll have the state competition this weekend first.
Jones said that the Lady Panthers will need to execute the changes they have made with confidence and bring enough energy along with sharpness to stop a room to come out on top. Nall shared a similar notion, noting that there will be little to no room for error for the E-gals amongst the best that the Commonwealth has to offer.
“Obviously we have to successfully execute our skills,” Nall said. “State is a monster for us. Graves County and McCracken County have a near strangle-hold on first and second place. They will both be in the top teams in their divisions at nationals. They are loaded. We have to execute, not give up any points due to errors, and look for one of them to open a door for us.”
