LIHUE — Performing before an audience of several hundred people filling the new Kauai High School gymnasium, the cheer squads — two coed squads and one all-girl squad — provided a show beyond the level seen at their sporting event appearances.
On Monday, following the guest routine by THRIVE With Movement, and special contests hosted by the Kauai High School Hospitality Committee, Kapaa High School cheer, with four of its members hailing from the football team, earned the 2024 Central Pacific Bank Kauai Interscholastic Federation cheer championships by collecting 38.767 points from the panel of off-island judges that earlier did duty at the Kauai Pop Warner Football League island-wide cheer.
Overall, the three cheer squads worked through routines involving building skills, tumbling and jumps, and cheer with judges watching for the technical mastery as well as safety.
Waimea High School, the sole all-girl squad competing, finished in second place with 35.650 points. Kauai High School, with all of 13 seniors on the squad, finished in third place with 31.200 points.
Waimea High School’s squad got the highest points in the tumbling and jumping judging at 8.3 points, followed by Kauai at 7.6 points and Kapaa at 7.2 points.
But Kapaa tallied the highest points in the other judged areas, including building skills and cheer. The Warriors cheer squad also has the least number of deduction points.
With the victory, Kapaa prepares to represent the KIF on Nov. 13 at the 2024 Zippy’s Hawaii High School Athletic Association cheerleading championships, which will be held at the Neal Blaisdell Arena on Oahu.
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 808-245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
