Tuck to title?

Saints hope new stunt
leads cheer team to states

Originally
published February 16, 2007

By MATT SCHOCH

Times

By KEITH KING, Times Herald By KEITH KING, Times H

CHEERS: Ciara
Phillips, left, 16, performs with her fellow St. Clair varsity cheerleaders
Tuesday night during the basketball game between the Saints and New Haven at St.
Clair High School. The Saints' cheerleaders have high hopes for the
postseason. GO TEAM: The St. Clair varsity cheerleaders try to give the
basketball team a boost during Tuesday's game against New Haven.

An advanced individual
gymnastics stunt has brought the St. Clair competitive cheerleading team
together with hopes of a state-championship berth.

This year's Saints are
the first in school history to perform the back tuck, a backward flip without
hands, in competition throughout the season.

In competitions, teams
perform three routines with the second concentrating on precision drills in
unison. It's during this routine that all 15 athletes do the stunt.

"We've
been working really hard on landing (tucks) and the execution of all of our
stunts," senior Courtney Duncan said. "We've come really far. It's
awesome that in my senior year that we get this far."

Duncan is among seven seniors who serve as
captains. The Saints have been practicing since June in preparation for
upcoming postseason competitions.

Six of those seniors
have been with the team for four years, and the Saints' ultimate goal is to
qualify for the Division 2 state meet March 10 at Grand Valley
State University.

"That's the common
goal, and we've been talking about it all season," Saints Coach Amanda Lipke said, in her first year heading the varsity team.
"They've been coming together and been working a lot more."

To qualify, the Saints
will need a top-two finish at regionals March 3 in Oxford. St. Clair has
not qualified for states since 2002.

First up are the Macomb
Area Conference White Division championships at 11 a.m. Saturday at Warren
Cousino. To win, the Saints will have to outperform Utica Eisenhower, which
last week topped St. Clair by eight points in a jamboree.

"Execution is
where we need to get the high points," senior Kaitlyn
Hansen said. "We could improve. In practice, we've pretty much been
going through the stunts over and over to make it consistent."

Hansen said most other
White teams have been doing back tucks and to keep up, the Saints had to
implement them into their routines. She said to perform consistently,
the teammates have relied on each others' experience.

"It is an
individual thing when you're doing it, but you have to trust each other that
you're going to be fine with it," she said. "The more experienced
girls spend a lot of time spotting and helping. We've helped each other a
lot."

To develop skill, the
team has practiced gymnastics at Cheer XL in Kimball once a week, something
that is new to the program.

"When we were
freshmen, we didn't have much gymnastics involved," Hansen said.
"It's becoming pretty important."

Tricia Shine, Amanda
Craven, Jamie Laurie, Brittni Stefanidis
and Kelsey Joachim join Hansen and Duncan as seniors on the team.

The Saints hope to
sustain success program-wide. To recruit future athletes, the team performed
at an area church for three schools of younger children earlier this season
for the first time.

For now, however, the
goals are winning league and, most importantly, performing well at regionals and qualifying for states.

"We've had some
girls injured, and now everyone is pretty much healthy," Duncan said, adding
winning this weekend would add confidence for a better regional finish.

Said Hansen:
"States has been our goal all along. As seniors, we all know this would
be our last year to go to states, and that's been the focus."