Cheer team takes third at regionals
Next stop: State finals!
One major goal was set as a team by the Varsity Competitive Cheer team back in November at the beginning of their season…to make it to the D2 Competitive Cheer State Finals. Many hours of practice, competing, changing the rounds to make them better, and getting the girls to push themselves to work harder finally paid off at the Regional competition on Saturday at Grand Rapids Christian.
Seniors on the cheer team. Back: Ally Byrnes, Amber Dunham, Brittani Tozer, Kirsten Vanloo. Front: Taylor Denslow, Brittany Lenardsen, Heather Mindler.
The Red Hawks were the first team to start off the competition in round 1. “We talked all week about coming out in round 1 and to give everything they have because once your done you can’t go back and do it over,” said Coach Pamela Ingles. That is exactly what they did and had one of their highest scores with a 223. They were in 3rd place by 1.5 points.
Next, they had to prepare for round 2, which is the round that really starts to separate the teams scores because of the difficulty of skills used. The Red Hawks had really been working very hard to clean up all of theory skills on round 2 and it was well worth it. They scored a 232, which pulled them up to 2nd place.
One more round to go and they could be competing at the State Finals again. “I remember telling them before round 3 to think about the details we had been working on all week and most of all to have fun!” remarked Coach Ingles. They had a solid round 3 with their highest score of the season with a 308.
In the end, they placed third, ¾ of a point behind second-place Kenowa Hills. Mount Pleasant won the District, and Stevensville Lakeshore took 4th, to round out the top four heading to state
Their hard work all season-long earned the Red Hawks a return trip to the State Finals. They will be competing at the D2 Competitive Cheer State Finals on Saturday, March 5 at the Delta Plex. Starting time will be 10:00 a.m. Doors will open at 9:00 a.m. for spectators.
