BLACKFOOT — The Blackfoot High School Cheer Team has been strong at competitions during the past few years but in 2026 it seemed the squad was poised for a rebuilding season.

“We graduated 10 seniors last year. You can only put 24 athletes on the mat so that’s nearly half our team,” said Heather Grimmett, head coach of the Blackfoot Cheer Team. “A lot of people didn’t think we would do as well this year and it would be a rebuilding year.”

The Broncos cheerleaders didn’t just do better than expected this year, they completely dominated their competitions as the 2025-26 season wound down. It started with a victory at the coveted Cupid’s Cheer Challenge hosted by Highland High School in January, from which Blackfoot walked away champions.

They followed that up at the 5A Sixth District tournament, sweeping the competition by winning all three categories on their way to a district championship. Next on the list was the Idaho High School State Dance & Cheer Championships, hosted in Idaho Falls on Feb. 28.

The Broncos continued their dominance, winning all three categories, sweeping the competition and grabbing their third state title in four years.

“This is an unprecedented thing we did this year,” Grimmett said. “For a coach, this is kind of a dream.”

But there is still more. Not only did they win the presentation part of the competition, but the Blackfoot Cheer Team’s 3.847 average GPA led all other teams, making them Academic Champions as well. That’s right, they swept district, they swept a 25-team field at state and took the Academic Champions title as well.

“Beauty and brains,” Grimmett said. “They are smart and talented. Everyone on this team deserved that title.”

Blackfoot also won state in 2025 and they swept all three categories in 2023 as well, but they did not sweep the district tournament, nor did they take the Academic Champions title that year.

Grimmett has been part of the coaching staff for the Blackfoot Cheer Team for the past 10 years but until this school season, she was an assistant to Christa Stufflebeam who was head coach for nine years. This past summer the two switched places with Grimmett taking on the head coaching duties and Stufflebeam becoming her assistant.

“She wanted to step down from being head coach because her daughter graduated last year,” Grimmett said.

After losing 10 seniors from last year’s squad, Grimmett knew she faced some challenges but said she had a lot of underclassmen step up this year to fill that void.

The cheer competition is broken down into three performance categories, Show, Sideline and POM. The Show category, which weighs the heaviest in the competition, is the one where the team displays its well rehearsed cheer routine inclusive of all those gymnastics techniques and stunts that can make cheer jaw dropping at times. Sideline is where the team displays its ability to get the crowd involved and can include some stunts. POM is that performance that includes all those sharp, synchronized arm motions and pom-pom movements.

Grimmett said the team dominated at the state competition in a pretty high pressure situation. The Show performance is just two minutes and 30 seconds long. The other two are only a minute each.

“You only get one shot at it,” Grimmett said. “Your whole season comes down to two-and-a-half minutes. Anything can happen,”

With competition season over, the whole cycle will begin again in just a few weeks with tryouts for next year’s team in April and then practices throughout the summer in preparation for next school year.

“We really only get about a month break before we start all over again,” Grimmett said.