First
routine sets tone for Grandville

Saturday,
January 05, 2008

By
Dean Holzwarth

The Grand Rapids Press

GRANDVILLE -- The girls
on the Grandville competitive cheer team have fun with their first-round
cheer.

It's a revamped cheer
that they enjoy doing and it helped set the tone toward a successful finish
Saturday at the 14th-annual Grandville Invitational.

The Bulldogs produced the
highest Round 1 score of the 23 teams competing and went on to capture
first-place honors in Division 1 in front of a crowd of 1,500.

"They
love to do it and it came together really well today," Grandville coach
Julie Smith-Boyd said. "We tried to identify parts of the cheer that
weren't exciting, and we worked on those parts.

"Because it's fun,
they really can sell it, and it's probably the best Round 1 cheer we've had
in a few years. There were few things I saw wrong with it."

Grandville finished with
a 776.196 total and topped West Ottawa
(746.910) and third-place Hudsonville (726.920).

It was the Bulldogs'
second consecutive win after also capturing the CCCAM Scholarship
Invitational last month.

"With each
invitational our confidence grows," Bulldogs senior Jillayne
Kurtz said. "Our team is younger this year, but they've really stepped
up to the challenge.

"Our goals were to
give the crowd a lot of energy and stick everything, and we just came
together really well as a team and worked well together."

The Bulldogs also posted
the high score in Round 2 with a 242.196 and cemented the victory with a
304.5 score in Round 3.

"Rounds 1 and 2 are
strong for us because our material this year is a lot of fun," Kurtz
said. "It always feels good to win this invitational, but it's the most
nerve-racking because it's in front of our own crowd."

In Division 2, Caledonia
placed second to Mount Pleasant
with a final total of 640.432, while Catholic Central opened the season with
a promising effort in Division 3.

The Cougars took second
behind Chippewa Hills, thanks in part to a score of 273 in their final round.
They edged third-place Otsego by less than a point.

"I'm very proud of
the girls because they had a lot of energy and confidence and they didn't
hold back," Catholic Central coach Tara Hickey said. "Our goal was
to come out and do our best performance and see how we placed. To take second
at the end was very exciting. It was a good way to start the season."