Hobbs, Lovington savor state cheer titles
PETER STEIN/NEWS-SUN
Hobbs and Lovington won state championships at The Pit after all.
Though the Hobbs boys and girls basketball teams were defeated in the state semifinals and finals, respectively, at The Pit earlier this month, and both Lovington basketball teams fell just short of making it there, the Hobbs and Lovington cheer teams each captured state championships at The Pit in Albuquerque last weekend.
The Eagles and Wildcats had the same goal, yet were on different missions – the former team was trying to return to the mountaintop, the latter was trying to stay there. For the Eagles, last weekend’s state 5A title was the end of a redemption tour; they had last won the championship in 2023, but finished third last year.
“Oh my goodness, we’re over the moon,” Hobbs head coach Cassey Sudweeks said. “We are so, so excited.”
For the Wildcats, last weekend’s success brought a seven-peat – seven state 4A championships in a row.
“So, so excited, crazy excited,” Lovington head coach Olivia Amundsen said. “The best feeling, it never gets old.”
For both teams it was a journey that began in earnest late last year. While the squads are ever working, practicing year round, even through the summer, their specific work toward the state championships began in the fall when they received their choreography from the NMAA.
“And once we’re given those routines,” Sudweeks said, “our practices really turn into doing drills to get those elite skills. So we just practice the different stunts we’re given, we practice those over and over, and then we start to put the puzzle pieces together to work on those routines as a whole.”
“There’s one (routine), the big one every calls it, we don’t work on until football season is over,” Amundsen said. “It’s the big one because of all the different aspects. In Game Day we want you to feel like you’re at a D-1 football game. … We get points for how the crowd reacts to us. Cheer with Music is where we as a team stand apart from everyone else. That’s where you see the tumbling, the stunting. Co-ed stunt team is the team that can do the most.”
Which they have to do in just two minutes and 30 seconds.
“Literally they don’t stop,” Amundsen said. “It’s just as many skills as you can pack into two and a half minutes.”
After the teams hone their routines during late fall and early winter, it’s time to test them out at local competitions in January and February.
“That way we have a chance to practice them in front of a crowd,” Sudweeks said, “before we go to state in March.”
All while paying attention to their regular cheerleading duties.
“We spend the summer teaching everybody the sideline material,” Sudweeks said, “and that’s what we use at a game for football, volleyball, basketball. We prioritize being sideline cheerleaders before we are competitive ones.
“Luckily,” Sudweeks added, “we don’t have games every single day, so there are definitely days and times throughout the week when we get to focus solely on our routines. That’s super helpful.”
After working diligently on perfecting those routines, the Eagles and Wildcats head to The Pit. It’s exciting for them, but the scoring procedure leaves them at somewhat of a disadvantage. Basketball teams can tell how they’re doing throughout the course of their games, it’s right there on the scoreboards in The Pit. When the Tatum girls basketball team won its state championship two weeks ago, they knew when the buzzer sounded that they had earned a blue trophy.
Cheer teams have to wait for the announcement from the judges, almost like they’re trying to win an Oscar.
“So you have to wait anxiously,” Sudweeks said, “and you’re watching the other teams do great, or sometimes have falls or bobbles, so when you’re sitting there you don’t exactly know what’s going to happen.”
They don’t even get the judges’ notes and critiques, don’t know what they might have done wrong, until afterward, which sometimes comes in a phone call.
“They basically just say, ‘Hey, you got a deduction,’” Amundsen noted. “At that point you can fight it, you can appeal it, but that has to happen after the state championships. That’s why you have to be so much on top of it because it really can change the course of a championship.
“And we got zero deductions, yay!” Amundsen continued. “For our kids it’s like they’re studying for an AP exam. They know those rules, they’re drilled into them.”
The Wildcats might be enjoying an eight-peat by now if COVID hadn’t cost them a year of state competition. “Should be eight,” Amundsen said. “We’ll get it next year.”
For Hobbs, it was a matter of switching places with Organ Mountain, who took first place last year, with Centennial second and the Eagles third. This year, it was Hobbs first, Centennial second again, and Organ Mountain third.
“We were able to climb back up to the top,” Sudweeks said. “It was just amazing to be able to witness it, be a part of it.”
For both teams it was the end of a journey, with a lot of work along the way.
“It’s not just two-hour practices,” Amundsen said. “It’s all year long, a full-time job for us. But that’s actually also what makes New Mexico have such a great spirit program; you have to have such focus. They want you to be so technical and clean, it makes the champions stand out. And Lovington to me, that’s what we are known for, that technicality.”
“It really was just amazing to know that everything we put into this season, all our hard work, was being recognized and had paid off,” Sudweeks said. “Our varsity cheerleaders, I think, had attended about 60 events just this season alone. So for them to be able to perform at all these events each week, on top of maintaining an above average GPA, and still take home the first-place trophy, I feel like we’ve won in so many areas than just being the 5A state champions. And I’m so proud they were able to bring back the trophy to this school.”
