WHITEHALL — It became a bit of a running joke with the Whitehall coaching staff that no matter what happened last season, the Vikings placed fifth each time out in the West Michigan Conference.
Now that Karlie Sika has had a full offseason to prepare her team for year two of her time as coach, she isn't interested in "jinxing" her hopes for the team by guessing where they might finish in the standings, but she is hopeful the scores will improve throughout the year.
"I really want my girls to focus on improving every single competition in their scores, because if they do that, by the end of the season, they should be peaking at exactly the right time," Sika said. "We want to improve every practice. I would say that's our big goal right now, because we're definitely building a program and building a foundation."
Whitehall lost a lot of talent to graduation last offseason, leaving them with only two seniors that will be on the mat consistently this year. A third senior, Ausha Matthews, is out with an injury, though she continues to be part of the team, and the Vikings also have a foreign exchange student senior on the roster.
That leaves Gracie Peterson and Dani Lear to lead the team on the mat.
"Dani and Gracie have been excellent in all three rounds, leading the girls and working with them on developing leadership as far as in huddles and things like that before the competition," Sika said.
The coaching staff has also been impressed with junior Izzy Gould, a three-round athlete, and sophomore Morgan Wade.
"We have a lot of freshmen that are really skilled," Sika added.
The staff has seen the results of having a full offseason of preparation after Sika took over late in the process leading up to last season. They're confident those results will show up in competitions as well.
"It was nice to have girls coming in during the summer and doing conditioning and things like that this year, but also just to know the girls and know the parents made the transition a lot smoother going into this season of sideline and competitive (cheer)," Sika said. "I think we've been able to prepare a lot more for competitive (cheer) as far as the other things that we want to be doing with the girls, as far as bringing people in to do yoga with them or whatever that looks like."
