Grandville cheer team shines at home

Sunday,
January 07, 2007

By Dean
Holzwarth

The Grand Rapids Press

GRANDVILLE -- The last
thing the Grandville competitive cheer team wanted to do was disappoint its
home crowd.

The Bulldogs placed third
at last year's Grandville Invitational, but Saturday they redeemed themselves
with a solid three-round effort to capture first place.

In front of a packed
house, Grandville tallied high scores in each round and finished with a final
score of 734.4 in Division 1.

West Ottawa placed
runner-up at 725.2, and East Kentwood
(699.6) was third.

"We really wanted to
win this, especially because there were so many alumni here and people from
our school who came to support us," Bulldogs senior Karra
VanderWiere said. "A lot of people haven't had
the chance to see us so we wanted to show everyone what we have."

What the Bulldogs have is
another talented squad and they proved it with a mixture of experience and
youth.

Grandville produced a
score of 196 in round 1, but put together a 222.4-point performance in round
2 that impressed coach Julie Smith-Boyd.

"Round 2 had kind of
been our bread and butter the last couple weeks," Smith-Boyd said.
"In the past we've struggled with back-walkovers, but today that was
probably the best walkover that I've seen a Grandville team do in five years.
That was very good so I was happy with that."

The Bulldogs led by less
than five points over West Ottawa entering
the final stunt round, but increased their advantage with a score of 316 to
the Panthers' 311.5.

"They really pulled
it out at the end and I think the crowd helped keep them going,"
Smith-Boyd said. "I know that they really wanted to do well today
because last year we were third. Our goal today was to hit everything and
they pretty much did that."

First-year West Ottawa coach Kristine Brandt said she was proud of
her team's finish against four of the area's top teams.

"I think they did a
great job and we beat every single one of our round scores from the previous
week so I was very happy with how they did," Brandt said.
"Grandville is a great team so second is not discouraging at all. We
beat ourselves and that's the most important thing."

DeWitt took top honors in
Division 2 with a final score of 665.3, while Mattawan (652.4) took second
and Mona Shores (644.3) was third.

In Division 3, Chippewa
Hills reached the 700-point mark en route to a victory over Chesaning
(693.8). Shelby
(578.1) ousted Gobles (561.2) in Division 4 action.