Jacob Dimond \/ jake@yelmonline.com<\/p>\n
In Total Sports Development\u2019s (TSD) final competition as a Yelm-based program, two teams representing the TSD branding finished atop of the national ranks in Anaheim, California, during the USA Spirit Nationals.<\/p>\n
TSD Rain, coached by sisters Kaylee McJunkins and Kendall McJunkins, finished as the national champions in the eight to 12 year old category, while TSD Storm, coached by Coral Ogle and Brooklyn Martin, finished in second overall place.<\/p>\n
Prior to TSD\u2019s appearance in the national competition in Anaheim, California, on Sunday, Feb. 22, the four coaches, along with TSD co-founder Amber Ogle, spoke about how big the opportunity was for both teams and the athletes involved. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe one thing I want to put out there is that all of my coaches, people gave me a lot of flack because they\u2019re so young. But they\u2019ve proven they\u2019re more than capable and the parents learned that very quickly, and they trust them,\u201d Amber Ogle said, on Wednesday, Feb. 18. \u201cWhat\u2019s making this program so special is, of course, not only the parents and athletes coming together and believing in us, but our coaches love and trust each other. When we have each other\u2019s back, anything is possible.\u201d <\/p>\n
The McJunkins sisters, TSD Rain\u2019s coaches, were both thrilled with the amount of hard work that the young athletes had put in leading up for a chance to earn a national championship. Kaylee highlighted the program\u2019s early-season efforts \u2014 which began all the way back in August.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started in August practicing pretty consistently, multiple times per week. We started off with choreography so they could get better and better as the weeks went on,\u201d Kaylee said. \u201cOur first competition was on Nov. 8, and that was our qualifier for the national competition. The girls qualified immediately and that was amazing. It set us off on a really good foot for the whole season. They\u2019ve been undefeated since.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kendall added that TSD Rain had a really good season in the organization\u2019s inaugural season in 2024-25, and she believed the team was primed to have an even better year this season. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a lot of confidence that this team would kill it and they did. We believe in them, and it was such a good experience,\u201d Kendall said. \u201cThe girls were so excited to go to California and Disneyland and get this experience. We competed ,last year, in just the state competition. They wanted to go do something bigger this year, and we knew that they could. We\u2019re ready to conquer this competition.\u201d <\/p>\n
Coral Ogle and Martin helped lead TSD Storm to the national championship tournament in the team\u2019s first year of existence. Ahead of their efforts in Anaheim, their team was made aware of a massive change that needed to happen to their routine prior to arriving in California.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first year for TSD Storm. We went our whole entire season undefeated in a non-tumbling division. Recently, we figured out that for nationals, they\u2019re in a tumbling division,\u201d Coral Ogle said. \u201cWe had to re-choreograph pretty much a whole portion of our routine, which is a really big deal, into tumbling. So now they\u2019re going into nationals with a whole different routine, and tumbling as a non-tumbling team. It\u2019s been a huge adjustment but they have done incredible so far. We\u2019re insanely proud of how far they\u2019ve come.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Martin, the transition from the non-tumbling category to the tumbling competition was a tough one \u2014 at first. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere were tears but there were also a lot of laughs too. It was hard to set an expectation for how tumbling would go, but we\u2019re really proud of how far they\u2019ve come,\u201d she said. \u201cThey took it and ran with it. It took two weeks to add the tumbling back into our routine. They\u2019re also state champions in the non-tumbling division.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ogle, and the three other coaches, were all proud of the team\u2019s efforts all season leading up to the big competition in Anaheim. She believes the team\u2019s qualification for the tournament is a strong show of the hard work the girls have put in since November. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe girls have worked really hard for this season,\u201d Coral Ogle said. \u201cBeing able to be at nationals and go against all of these amazing teams is a blessing itself. Being able to bring these girls to nationals, especially in their first year, is a really rewarding feeling \u2014 especially as retired cheerleaders. It\u2019s a once in a lifetime opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacob Dimond \/ jake@yelmonline.com In Total Sports Development\u2019s (TSD) final competition as a Yelm-based program, two teams representing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":{"0":"post-193014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}