East Kentwood, Grandville advance

Sunday,
March 04, 2007

By Jane
Bos

The Grand Rapids Press

KENTWOOD -- Behind never-stop smiles and
synchronized stunts, the Grandville competitive cheer team executed back
handsprings and back tucks at Saturday's Division 1 regional meet.

The Bulldogs weren't going
to repeat last weekend's performance, when they finished third at the O-K Red
meet.

Grandville, the most
successful area team since the sport's inception in 1994, was back to its old
ways.

Scoring a total of 746.9,
including a 320.5 out of a possible 330 in the third open round, Grandville
captured the regional championship at East Kentwood.
The Bulldogs advanced to their 13th consecutive state finals, set for 6 p.m.
Friday at the DeltaPlex.

East
Kentwood
also qualified for state for the sixth year in a row by placing runner-up
with a 737.7 score.

The 2005 state runner-up
and the 2007 O-K Red champ West Ottawa Panthers missed qualifying, finishing
third with a score of 736.8. Only the top two teams from each region advance
to state.

"It is not glamorous,
not at all," Grandville coach Julie Smith-Boyd said. "We work hard,
and we worked so hard this week. It was like we had a completely different
team today. They were so determined, and they kept getting better and better
every day. We really elevated our game today."

Grandville, the state
champs in 1997, '98 and 2004, are the only Class A/Division 1 team to win a
state title besides top-ranked Rochester.
Rochester is
ranked No. 1, while the Bulldogs are No. 2.

In the final poll, West
Ottawa was ranked third and East Kentwood
was fourth. Jenison, ranked 10th, finished fourth (708.4) Saturday at regionals, and Rockford,
an honorable-mention team in the rankings, was fifth (686.6).

"Today is
bittersweet," East Kentwood co-coach
Stacy Sheler said. "We really like West Ottawa,
and we feel bad they are not going to state. Five of the top teams in the
state are in our conference, in this regional, and while I am really happy we
are going, we know it was so close."

A week ago, the Falcons
finished second at the O-K Red Conference meet behind the Panthers.

"We really didn't
change anything today," said the Falcon co-coach Stephanie Stephenson.
"We just worked on making it more solid."

Now Grandville and Kentwood get one more
week to improve more.

"We changed our round
three a couple weeks ago to eliminate all the dead spots," Smith-Boyd
said. "We worked hard in front of the mirrors to eliminate mistakes.
There is so much timing and strength involved. We are excited to be doing it
for one more week, to go to state again."

DIVISION 2 AT CEDAR
SPRINGS: Holland Christian scored 670.8 points to earn the top qualifying
spot, with Sparta
edging out GR Christian by eight-tenths of a point for the second spot,
662.4-661.6.

DIVISION 3 AT LAKEWOOD: Three
Rivers (677.7) and
Otsego (675.2) moved on to the state competition. Lakewood (666.6) missed qualifying for
state, falling short by nine points.

DIVISION 3 AT
COOPERSVILLE: Comstock Park and Wyoming
Park made the cut for
the state finals, with the Panthers scoring 705.2 points and Wyoming Park
667.7. Allendale, Unity Christian and Catholic Central rounded out the top
five.

DIVISION 4 AT SHELBY: Pewamo-Westphalia and Shelby moved on to the state finals, as
Calvin Christian finished in third place and out of the running for a
state-qualifying trip.-- Steve Ungrey
contributed to this story.