PUBLISHED:
Thursday, February 04, 2007

Huskies move up, land third

Warrior win D3 title, edge Chesaning and Breckenridge

By NATE SCHNEIDER

Sun Sports Writer

In the world of athletics, it is hard to have a result that pleases everyone.

But on Saturday at the
Mt. Pleasant Invite, both the Chippewa Hills and Breckenridge competitive
cheer teams were happy with how it fared despite being in direct competition
with each other.

Chippewa Hills, the
second-ranked squad in Division 3, proved to be victorious on the afternoon
as it concluded the meet with 744.7 points to sneak by just ahead of
Chesaning (738.4).

Breckenridge, on the
other hand, moved up a division to compete with the bigger schools and
finished in third place overall.

It wasn't a victory,
but Huskies coach Deb Gaines was entirely satisfied with what transpired at
the invite.

"I thought the
girls did great today. We've been moving up the last couple of weeks to
compete with Chesaning, so they were a team we are familiar with. Competing
with bigger schools isn't a problem for us," Gaines said.

With such a decorated
Breckenridge cheerleading history, the biggest challenge this season is the
smaller amount of girls to work with as the Huskie
roster only contains eight girls.

"It was tough
making up the rounds with that kind of size, but the scoring has been great.
The judges are scoring what they see and I am very pleased with that,"
Gaines said.

After a slow start to
the season, Breckenridge appears to be gaining momentum as it gets to closer
to regionals.

"We started
competing a little later and it took a while to get our stunt routine done
with new people in new places. But the last three weeks it's been amazing and
now it's just a matter of going full steam ahead," Gaines said.

For the Warriors, it
was a win by the narrowest of margins as Chesaning gave them a fight to the
finish.

With both schools
deadlocked at 207 after round one, Chesaning then took a lead after the
second round by outscoring Chippewa Hills 221.9-218.7.

But in the third round,
the Warriors persevered and finally pushed ahead in the scoring.

"That was our best
third round of the season so far," Chippewa Hills coach Jenna Ruddell said.

The Warriors have
experienced a few injuries this season and have had to revamp the lineup on
more than one occasion, but still continue to push forward as Saturday once
again showed.

"We've had many
setbacks due to injuries and every week it seems like there is something else
to overcome, but we are really starting to get in a groove now and hopefully
we can keep it going because we have a very busy week ahead," Ruddell said.

Breckenridge returns to
action Wednesday at Central Montcalm, while Chippewa Hills now prepare for
its big Delta Plex Meet in Grand Rapids on Saturday.