They’ve got spirit

Ridgefield places third, Battle Ground eighth at home in state cheer championships

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The Ridgefield Spudder cheer placed third, but Battle Ground High School had the shortest trip to travel for the 2025 Washington Interscholastic Activities Association State Cheer Championships last weekend at BGHS. 

The state cheer championships brought 95 high schools from all over the state to Battle Ground High School on Friday, Jan. 24, and Saturday, Jan. 25. Even the University of Washington stopped by for an exhibition performance on Saturday fresh off their first national competition medal in program history. 

On Saturday, Jan. 25, the Ridgefield Spudders showed off their game day spirit, which resulted in a third-place finish in the 1A/2A game day small category. The Battle Ground Tigers sported their black and orange pride on their home floor in front of fans and cheerleaders from every corner of the state and placed eighth in the 4A game day large category. 

Ridgefield’s performance was a sign of the Spudders’ resilience. 

“It was an amazing performance. These guys have been through a lot,” head coach Angela Campbell said. “We’ve had teammates that have been hurt and some that have had to quit for whatever reason and had to pull alternates in, and this team has worked together for the last few weeks and did this.”

Ahead of the state cheer performance, the Spudder squad performed its routine in front of the entire high school on Friday, Jan. 24. Ahead of learning the cheer performance results, Campbell told the Spudder cheer squad to have no regrets. 



“I told them that I wanted them to walk off this mat and have no regrets, and as long as they had no regrets, the placement’s just a number,” she said. “They just need to have no regrets.”

For the Battle Ground Tigers, the opportunity to perform in front of a full-capacity audience at their own high school has been a year in the making. 

“Last year we didn’t make it by one point, and we were all very determined,” Tigers head coach Megan Torneby said. “We got back in the gym a month after the season was over and started working out and making it happen. We went to four different competitions all over Washington state. We practiced before school. We practice at 5:30 every morning and just made it happen.”

In 2019, the Tigers won the state title in their home gym in the 4A coed non-tumbling division. 

“I am so proud,” Torneby said. “There is not one athlete on this team who has ever been to state before. Our team has gone to state before, but it was before any of these kids performed. So every single one of them is a rookie, and they went out there and killed it. I have never heard them as loud as they were.”