Blaylock tumbles into competitive
cheer

Tuesday,
February 06, 2007

By Leah
Soubly

[email-masked]
388-8400

Sunday is usually Courtniee Blaylock's only day off from the weekly
drilling practices and weekend competitive cheer contests.

Instead of relaxing, the
Mattawan senior spends the day perfecting her tumbling at the Allendale Gymnastics Center
during the all-star team's warm-up. Then she watches the college-level
gymnasts and her sister, Nichole, practice their routines.

``It's really made me a
better cheerleader,'' Blaylock said, ``because cheerleading is always
something I've wanted to do. But taking classes for gymnastics keeps me on
track. Gymnastics has more discipline.''

In order to reach her goal
of becoming a college cheerleader, Blaylock has stayed focused on improving
her skills during her four-year varsity performance on Mattawan's competitive
cheer team. The Wildcats are defending Southwestern Michigan Athletic
Conference champs and hope to advance to the state finals this season.

``I'm pushing myself to do
what I need to do and I make sure I never give up,'' Blaylock said. ``I just
want to make sure I'm up to the college level.''

For the past two years of
competitive cheer, Blaylock received the 110 Percent Award and was named to
the all-conference team. Last season, she received the Coach's Award by
Mattawan coach Nichole Cerutti. Blaylock was also
recognized as MVP during the sideline season this school year.

Blaylock began her
cheerleading career as an elementary gymnast. In first grade, she began
participating in gymnastics competitions and, by fourth grade, she had begun
taking dance lessons.

``It was required to take
a ballet class to be on the gymnastics team, but once I took that class, I
was more interested in dance,'' Blaylock said.

By eighth grade, Blaylock
said goodbye to competitive dance and turned to cheering in her freshman year.

``I followed in my
sister's footsteps,'' Blaylock said. ``I really enjoyed having my sister (who
was a senior) on the team my freshman year; I really look up to her. So, it
was fun being able to cheer with her.''

Now, Blaylock spends most
of her time focusing on cheerleading and school, but still enjoys an
occasional day with friends, family or out on the ski slopes as a
snowboarder. With much of her gymnastics career behind her, Blaylock still
enjoys returning to her roots every Sunday.

``I miss it a lot,''
Blaylock said of gymnastics. ``But I look back at it and, in cheerleading,
you need tumbling skills and in college they focus on even harder skills, so
I'll always take classes for it.''

With a heavy background in
dance and gymnastics, Blaylock has helped Cerutti
in deciding what skills, tumbling techniques and steps should be used in
Mattawan's first two rounds of competition.

On Saturday, the Round 2
routine produced a 200.6 and Round 3 yielded a 300.5, both highly improved
scores for the Wildcats.

``We don't want anything
less than perfect,'' Cerutti said. ``We have goals
every week and we try to hit those goals. We have broken our scores from last
year -- we are already ahead of our scores. We broke 300 in Round 3
consecutively since the middle of January.''

Of Mattawan's 12 seniors
on the squad, three, including Blaylock, have been on the varsity squad for
all four years.

``They know they have to
give it their all,'' Cerutti said. ``There might
not be a next time, especially for the seniors. This is it for them.''

Said Blaylock, ``We push
each other. We couldn't do it without one person. We need every single person
on our team. Everyone has a position.''