The Cedar Springs Red Hawks middle school cheer team took first place at a conference meet at the middle school last week.

With the second conference meet of the middle school season being canceled due to weather, last Thursday, Dec. 15, brought seven teams to Cedar Springs Middle School for their next conference meet.

Illness hit a teammate the night before competition and brought a quick change to the routines and had the girls relearning them only hours before competition.

The girls finished round two with a score of 114.26 putting them in first place with a 14.66 lead.

That brought them to round three where the girls and coaches get to show their unique routines and tumbling skills. They finished round three with a score of 255.8, bringing their total score to 370.6 with a 57.06 lead and another first place finish.

“The team had to come together and rework the round after school when a teammate fell ill. I am so happy with their performance in round three! We improved our round three score by 37 points from our last competition.

The girls put their nerves aside and executed the round, I could not ask for anything more from them!” said coach Abby Olszewski.

The next middle school competition will be January 15 at Thornapple Kellogg.

The Cedar Springs high school JV & Varsity teams will compete Wednesday at Mona Shores and Saturday, January 7 at Comstock Park.

Come out and support a great group of girls and show your Red Hawk pride!

The horse named Born Hot Feelin Good captured the first-place Intermediate title in senior hunter under saddle at the 2013 American Quarter Horse Association Open World Championship Show on Friday, November 22 in Oklahoma City. The first-place Intermediate horse is owned by Deanna Bailey of Sand Lake, Michigan, and was shown by Amber Hanson of Byron, Michigan.

Born Hot Feelin Good is a 2006 red roan gelding. Born Hot Feelin Good, sired by Born To Be Blazing and out of Good Graces, was bred by Kristin Rinkenberger of Morton, Illinois.

The Intermediate awards program is designed to recognize exhibitors who have never placed in the top 10 at an AQHA world show in the particular class in which they are competing. Intermediate exhibitor status is based only on an exhibitor’s lifetime, combined world show record, not on the number of points he/she has accumulated. Intermediate accomplishments will appear on the official records of the horse and exhibitor. Intermediate first-place winners in each class receive an 8-inch clear globe.

The Cedar Springs boys varsity track team made a great showing at the individual state finals last Saturday at Houseman Field, taking several of the top 10 spots and placing sixth overall as a team. Senior Justin Balczak took first place in the 110m high hurdles, making him the champion in Division 2. Congratulations, Justin!
Click here to get the scoop on the boys and girls state track meets, and read the story on how our awesome girls soccer team took the district championship!

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.