Stunting on ‘em: In their first year competing, Ferris High School JV cheer squad earns national championship

Cheerleaders from Ferris High School’s junior varsity cheer squad stunted, tumbled and flipped their way to the national championships on Saturday.

After winning titles in the state competition, all 42 Saxons on the school’s varsity and junior varsity teams traveled to California to compete against decorated squads around the nation. The 17 kids on junior varsity earned the title of National Champions in Junior Varsity Coed Advanced Show Cheer, while the 28 kids on varsity placed second in their division for show cheer and crowd leading.

“It’s really cool to see how our team has improved,” said JV cheerleader Harper Oakley, a freshman who said her team’s humble beginnings made even a spot at nationals a bit of a long shot.

“We were, like, absolutely shell shocked, it was so surprising,” said senior Kolten Marsh, on the varsity team. “We did really good, but those teams are just super good. It was definitely awesome.”

Days after returning to Spokane as a national champ, junior Destiny Seaman said it was “surreal” to have earned the title. It was always a goal of hers to qualify for nationals, winning a competition was the cherry on top.

“It was our best routine we’ve ever done. I think it was just an amazing feeling to feel like we put our best foot out there and that’s all we could do,” Seaman said. “And it was enough.”

It’s the first year the junior varsity team competed at nationals, and Haley LaRue’s first year as JV head coach. She graduated from Ferris in 2024 after being on the cheer squad throughout high school, last year volunteering as a coach.

The Saxons flew to California for the multiday competition against the best of the best. The varsity and junior varsity teams excelled in their preliminary rounds in their divisions, advancing themselves to the finals and ultimately claiming first- and second-place titles for complicated routines involving dancing, tumbling, flipping and of course cheering. Students are judged based on the quality and difficulty of their flips and tricks and how effective they are at riling up a crowd.

“We are good on the sidelines and we’re good in the traditional sense of competitive cheerleading,” said cheerleading head coach Emily Schutz.

Schutz said the school is incredibly supportive of its cheerleaders from staff, students and volunteers. Her mom, Cindy Greenslitt, is retired but works as assistant coach and a sort of “Grandma” for the team. She manages all students and parents’ reservations and plane tickets, records all their stunts, tailors their costumes and whatever else they may need, Schutz said.

Most of the team is involved with other sports or extracurriculars, Schutz said, bringing in schoolwide support and giving the cheer squad their own group of cheerleaders.

“That doesn’t happen very often, which is great,” Schutz said.

The young athletes said they loved cheering, perhaps more than the many other sports they play. While they relish the thrill of contorting their bodies and throwing their teammates around, cheering has also instilled in the teenagers soft skills they can apply in other areas of life, they said.

Effectively giving feedback to others and accepting constructive criticism without a bruise to the ego comes much easier for Seaman after the years she’s spent taking and giving critiques, she said.

“It’s helped me a lot with communication and trying to figure out friendships,” Seaman said. “To say, ‘This needs to be fixed,’ but there’s a way about saying it nicely.”

Gracefully giving and taking feedback is often the first lesson in cheer practice, just after stunt safety, coaches said.

Through the perpetual cheer season, the team wasn’t without their dramas or disagreements Schutz said. At times, some kids asked to be moved and work with a different stunt group because of a fight with a stuntmate, Schutz said, but she never let them.

“We talk a lot about how we treat each other,” Schutz said. “Hopefully that carries on to their futures, on how to be a part of a team or a relationship and marriages and things like that, I hope it carries on.”

“This is my second family, and learning to be patient with these people is really important if I’m gonna be around them all the time,” Oakley said.

The Saxons evidently overcame any internal conflict enough to earn themselves national titles among the ranks of cheer teams they looked to for inspiration.

“We did not let them give up on each other,” Schutz said.