This past week has been a roller coaster of emotions for both the JV and Varsity Competitive Cheer teams.  Thursday, Cedar Springs hosted an invitational for 14 teams.  With the craziness of preparing the High School for a competition that is hosting 14 JV and Varsity teams to warming up all 3 rounds to compete in front of their home crowd, it tends to lend itself to a very busy night.  The Varsity team competed against several teams that they will compete against at their district competition in just a few weeks and finished the night with the first place title.  The JV team did a great job, but Grandville’s JV team, a D1 team, edged the Red Hawks out of the first place title as the JV finished in 2nd place.
On Saturday, the Varsity Competitive Cheer team traveled to East Kentwood for the LMCCOA Scholarship meet.  As the weeks are winding down, the teams are starting to prepare for the upcoming post-season meets. This competition resembled a mini district competition because of the number of teams they competed against that will be in their district at Kenowa Hills HS on February 19.
“It was a close competition right from the beginning. Nine teams were separated by 10 points. There is not much room for error when scores are that close,”  said Coach Pam Ingles.
After round 1 was finished, the Red Hawks were in 7th place and had a lot of work to do to move up.  They managed to move up to 4th place after round 2, and Sparta was in 1st place going into round 3 by about 4 points.  Round 3 would have to be solid and the question remained, “Would it be enough to move up?”
After round 3 was finished, the announcer read the scores. The Red Hawks waited to hear when their name would be called and each time another school was called the excitement grew. It finally came down to the top 2 teams.  The 2nd place spot went to Kenowa Hills and the Red Hawks had managed to propel themselves to the 1st place title after having a great round 3 with their highest score of the season in round 3 – 302.5.
“Saturday was a day filled with both fear and excitement.  There was that feeling of discouragement when we found out we were in 7th place. Then, sitting there hand in hand with our teammates when they called “1st place goes to….Cedar Springs” was a feeling of empowerment and relief that we reached the top together, as one team!” remarked Junior Kelli Markosky.
With only three weeks left until the district competition, there are still a lot of things that need to be cleaned up to accomplish their goal of making it through the district competition, the regional competition and then onto State Finals.  Both teams will be competing at Kenowa Hills on Saturday at 10:00.